


Big Cities Never Get Dark

by teyla



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Bad Communication, Break Up, Canonical Suicide Attempt, Depression, Emotionally Repressed, Emotionally Volatile, Endgame Ben Arnold/Sammy Stevens, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Ben Arnold/Emily Potter, Past Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright, Post-Episode: e075 The Ben Arnold Show, suicidal character, this fic has jokes and cute moments too i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-10-28 11:03:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: When you lose yourself, it’s impossible to predict where your life’s going to be when you come back around.Canon-divergent after Episode 75: The Ben Arnold Show





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by [justnightvalethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justnightvalethings) and [Neery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neery) \-- thank you so much, guys! Also thank you to [EveJobs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evejobs) for being an awesome first reader.
> 
> I swear, this fic is less depressing than the tags make it sound. I can also promise regular updates (most likely twice a week), so you won't be left hanging. Have fun reading, and I'd love to hear from you!

Big cities never get dark.

Sammy spent three years on the coast racking up money given to him for being rude on the radio, and he didn’t experience a single moment of full darkness. Even when it’s the middle of the night and there’s no light anywhere near, the city sky reflects brightness from windows and street lamps and headlights, a thousand lights shining because city people never sleep.

King Falls sleeps just fine most nights. There’s the odd person staying up to talk to AM radio hosts who’ve made it their livelihood to entertain insomniacs, but they’re no more than the exception proving the rule. Going to commercial break, stepping out of the ramshackle station to catch some air, every time Sammy would marvel at the dark town spread out in the valley. People who pull down their shades at night, people who go to sleep and wake up to go about their day in the morning. People who don’t mind that a third of the clock dial isn’t meant for them.

Sammy’s not like that. He’s never been like that, and yet he came here. He supposes it’s no surprise that with him came night time unrest, loud arguments buzzing through the air at a time when the town didn’t rightfully belong to its inhabitants. Rainbow lights brightening the sky at a time when the town had no use for light, for color, and now—

Now there’s a blaze covering the mountainside where the radio station used to be. Bright flames lick up the radio tower, set the surrounding trees on fire. It’s going to eat up the forest, kill birds and deer and rabbits, maybe kill Chet. Probably kill Chet. There can’t have been enough time for him to make it out. If Ben had been in there, there wouldn’t have been enough time for Ben to make it out.

Well done, Shotgun. Get small town folks killed 2k18, nuke Trump country from orbit. Post on Twitter about your radical suicide attempt to win a Starbucks sponsorship. It comes with a reusable bamboo mug that you can present at your local coffee shop for a green discount.

The radio tower cracks, the echo of crumbling steel bouncing back and forth between the mountains. It makes Sammy jump, and he doesn’t stop the movement, grabs the gear stick and slams the car into drive. Three-point-turn, military precision like his dad taught him on the Florida backroads. Reaction time is everything when there’s a flash flood coming at you, son, now get back in there and put your back into it.

That never made sense, not even when he was fifteen and had trouble spelling homosexuality without an f, an a, and a g. What good would putting his back into it do? He wasn’t trying to lift the damn car, after all.

The first motel flies by, the gas station, and the Bent & Dent. Then it’s Rose’s Diner, and he’s already back in the middle of King Falls, so small that it takes you no more than a few minutes to drive from one end to the other. It’s got a traffic light where the main road crosses Sudley, but it’s the middle of the night, and King Falls doesn’t do lights at night. Three black circles leave it up to him to stop or go, and, well, maybe he’s not in the best condition to judge. He did hit his head earlier.

The dust-colored Saturn blares its horn as it flies past. Sammy hits the brakes and jerks the wheel; reaction time is everything. His own car—a Toyota hybrid, the kind of car Shotgun would’ve mocked anyone to death for—veers off, the wheel slipping through his fingers as the tires screech over asphalt in an attempt to regain traction.

A hydrant puts a stop to his spin, catching the car’s tail end and pitching Sammy face-first into an exploding airbag.

It’s like getting punched by an ill-tempered balloon. He’s thrown back, not sure if the ringing in his ears is an alarm or just his head protesting further mistreatment. His vision blurs, things may be spinning. It’s still so goddamn _dark_.

“Sammy!”

There’s banging on the window. He fumbles for the button to make the glass slide down, which it does. Can’t fault Japanese engineering.

“Sammy! Jesus, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

It’s Ben. Of all the people in the world, of course Ben’s the guy Sammy’s going to nearly T-bone in the middle of a deserted night-time intersection. He wants to crack a joke about his long game ninja assassin plan having failed in the final stage (or something), but just as he opens his mouth, his stomach clenches in a way that makes him quickly shut it again.

“You’re fine, for fuck’s sake, Sammy, get out of the car.” Ben rattles the door handle, reaches through the window and finds the release. Next thing Sammy knows, he’s being dragged out of the driver’s seat.

“Ben—Ben! I can do this myself.” He does, finds his feet, and immediately has five foot four of AM radio host up in his face.

“What the _fuck_?” It’s night in King Falls, but King Falls isn’t what it used to be, so there’s enough light for Sammy to make out Ben’s face. The way Ben’s eyes are bulging, shiny and bright, goes with the tremor in his voice. “What are you doing, you could’ve—” Deep breath, lips thinning out as Ben collects himself. “Why exactly were you going ninety down Main Street?”

“Was I going that fast?” Sammy peers down the road. Likely he was. You can get from one end of King Falls to another pretty quick, but not that quick, not unless you break a few traffic laws. “I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean—”

“To get yourself killed? Just so you know, you’re doing pretty horribly at that tonight!”

Sammy’s throat constricts, stifles any words. It’s minutes ago that he was on the phone with Ben, saying goodbye. Live on the radio. It’s like his entire fucking life these days happens live on the radio, and what’s worse, he can’t even be bothered anymore.

The silence breaks something in Ben’s eyes. He goes from seeming ready to commit suicide preventive homicide to looking like a scared teenager. His gaze slips away, down to Sammy’s collar, and he sucks in a breath. “Jesus, Sammy, you’ve got blood all over you.” His hand comes up, fingertips brushing against shirt fabric. Sammy glances down, but it’s impossible to see anything at this angle.

“I hit my head.” He reaches up, prods at the sore spot somewhere underneath his hair. His hair, which is a sticky, soggy mess. This is going to be fun to wash off. “I got thrown against a tree.”

“Right.” Fingers brush against the side of Sammy’s neck. Ben’s eyes flit back and forth, nervous, like he wants to touch but doesn’t dare. Despite the dim light, Sammy can tell that Ben’s shaking.

“Hey.” He also doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch, but fuck it. He’s Sammy Stevens, he does what he wants. Grasps Ben’s arm and squeezes. “Ben, calm down. I’m fi—”

“Don’t you _fucking_ do it!” Ben shoves his hand away. Sammy snatches it back, startled. Ben’s glaring at him with too much white in his eyes. “Don’t you fucking tell me you’re fine, Sammy, don’t—” He takes a deep breath, points towards the other side of the intersection. “Get in my car. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Ben—”

“Did I stutter?”

It should be comical, this man who barely looks old enough to have a beer drawing himself up to his pathetic height and snapping lines that nobody should ever utter outside of a Scorsese movie. It’s not comical. Sammy reaches into his car for the keys, follows Ben across the intersection to the beat-up old Saturn.

It’s a silent trip to the ER, and an even more silent wait on the rickety plastic chairs in the triage area. It’s not normally a busy place, but tonight the staff’s out helping with the emergency of an entire mountainside being on fire, which means that the emergency of a goddamn idiot almost crashing his car into that of his best friend has to wait.

Sammy sits there trying to come up with something to say. Usually that’s the one thing he’s halfway good at, but tonight it’s like his thoughts are stuck in molasses. He’ll manage to have a couple coherent ones, and then it’s just blackness filling his mind, an all-consuming darkness that’s alive, sentient, that eats him up from the inside out.

He doesn’t realize how short his breath has become until he can feel Ben’s hand on his arm. “Sammy? What’s wrong?”

He opens his mouth, but he’s too busy sucking in air to talk. Ben’s fingers close around his. He squeezes back, finds Ben’s wide eyes with his own. Ben’s eyes are also dark, but this darkness is so different from the one in his mind. It feels like he could hide in it forever and be safe.

“I wanna go home.” He gets it out, somehow, around his too-tight throat.

Ben’s eyes do that thing again, grow soft and bright and somehow broken. “I just want them to check you out,” he says, scoots closer and uses both hands to grasp Sammy’s. Sammy looks down. Ben’s hands aren’t even that much smaller than his. Guess that means Emily will be happy enough when she finally gets in his pants. “You hit your head, and your airbag got deployed. You could have whiplash, or something.”

Sammy nods, just a tiny movement as he tries to focus on the way Ben’s skin feels against his own. It helps. His chest relaxes a little. “Okay.”

“Jesus, Sammy.” One of Ben’s not-so-tiny hands moves up, slides around Sammy’s shoulders. Sammy lets it happen, leans against Ben and realizes that his own body is trembling. For early May, the waiting area is kind of cold. They should really keep it at a warmer temperature, considering sick people come here.

“Once we’re done here, I’ll take you home, I promise,” Ben says. Sammy can hear his voice in his chest, a sonorous hum with a slight tremor in it. “Everything’s gonna be okay. You’ll be okay.”

“I’m fine.” Really, the crash wasn’t that bad. “Just got shaken up a little.”

Ben’s breathing does a weird thing, like a hitch or a glitch, but he doesn’t say anything. Continues to say nothing till a woman in scrubs shows up and leads them into an exam room. She prods and pokes, shines a light into Sammy’s eyes, and asks him to name the president of the United States.

“It’s the Annoying Orange,” he says. “With his Vice President “Make America Straight Again” Pence. Does this question even still count? It’s not like people can easily forget when the guy’s on TV twenty-four seven.”

“That’s kind of the point.” She gives him a smile, gets a pair of scissors and some bandages from a cart. “You’re fine, no concussion or whiplash. The cut isn’t deep. I’ll remove some hair, if that’s all right, and apply a bandage—”

“Hell no.” He hops off the exam table, ignores the alarmed step that Ben takes towards him. “You’re not cutting my hair. I want a haircut, I’ll go to Nancy’s. You said I’m fine, so we can go.”

“Mr. Stevens.” The woman stands there with her hands full of dressings and looks at him like she’s a fourth grade teacher trying to get a stroppy student to fall in line. “It won’t be much, not to worry. Nobody will notice.”

“No.” He doesn’t even know why he hates the idea so much. The thought of her standing behind him and fussing over the cut on his head makes him feel sick. “Ben, she said I’m fine. We can go.”

“Sammy—”

“It’s all right.” She puts the scissors down, holds up her hands. “It’s not deep, and it’s stopped bleeding. Just clean it thoroughly when you get home, okay?” She gestures at the door, throws Ben a glance. “You’re good to go. Please keep an eye on him, Mr. Arnold. Anything seems like it shouldn’t, you bring him back here.”

“I can bring my own damn self back here.” What a patronizing bitch. His stomach is tying itself into angry knots, and Ben’s hand on his wrist makes him jump.

“Sure thing, doc.” Ben tightens the grip on his arm. “Come on, Sammy. Stop—snarling. Let’s go.”

It takes him the entire way to the car to stop wanting to turn around and give that patronizing asshole doctor a piece of his mind. As he slides into the passenger seat, the empty can of Dr. Pepper that’s lying on the floor gets under his feet. He gives it a good kick. “This car’s a mess. Does it double as the town’s fucking garbage truck, or something?”

“All right, dude. Calm your tits. What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing.” He’s pretty sure that’s a lie, but he’s got nothing better. There’s a rage in his chest that he can’t quite explain, although it feels entirely justified. “I just wanna go home, okay?”

“Okay.” There’s a pause, and Ben doesn’t start the car. Sammy looks over, about to snap at him to get a move on, when he meets Ben’s eyes. Ben’s watching him with that same look of contained panic he’s been giving him all night.

“What?”

“I—where is home, Sammy? Your apartment?”

“I’ve got no fucking apartment.” He crosses his arms, peers out the passenger window and digs his fingers into the sides of his ribcage. Hold it together, Stevens. He takes a deep breath. “I let my lease run out.”

“Oh.” He can hear the frown in Ben’s voice. “What about your stuff? Where’s all your stuff?”

“I don’t have any stuff.” That’s not going to be enough, so he takes another breath, makes an effort. “I left it in the apartment. Most of it. I figured if they didn’t want it, they could give it to the Goodwill.”

“Jesus Christ, Sammy—”

“I have an overnight bag.” He talks over Ben’s protest, a little too loud. He doesn’t want to hear it right now. “It’s in the car, in the trunk of the car.” Which the hydrant made mincemeat out of. He closes his eyes. “It’s probably smashed to pieces.”

“Okay.” Ben starts the car. The Saturn’s suspension creaks as he backs it out of the parking lot. At the exit to the road, he takes a left.

Sammy’s not sure he can even be bothered to ask, but eventually does anyway. “So where are we going?”

“My place.” Ben’s hands on the wheel tighten, knuckles prominent in the dim light from the dashboard. Speaking of light, in the far distance, the horizon starts bleeding from pitch-black into muted reddish blues and yellows. Half an hour to the end of the show, then breakfast at Rose’s. This could’ve been a normal fucking night if he’d signed one of the contracts Ben kept leaving around in odd places. Leave it to him to fuck up something as simple as that.

“Is that okay?”

Ben sounds so uncertain, and he really shouldn’t. As implausible as it sounds, Ben’s the one person in this town who has his head on straight most of the time.

“Yeah, Ben. It’s fine. Thank you.”

Ben’s place is a split-level apartment in a cute little community made up of houses paneled in light blue planks of wood. The cars parked out front are sensible and low maintenance; the playground in the back sees more use than you’d expect in a town where spending your monthly accommodation budget on rent rather than a mortgage seems like a dumb choice. The place has a caretaker, old man Norm who salts the paths in the winter and clears away leaves in the fall. There’s a notice board in the community center that’s actually being used to trade things and advertise events. It’s a small town trying to do suburbia and failing to deliver on the trademark anonymity.

When Ben herds him through the door, Sammy wonders how long it’ll take for the news to spread that Sammy Steven’s moved in with Ben Arnold. Wonders if they’ll wake up some time soon to find homophobic slurs sprayed across the front door. If this were a Stephen King novel, they would. He’s not sure it’s not.

“I got a room upstairs,” Ben says, kicks off his shoes and leaves them by the door. “It’s a guest room, but it’s not like I’ve got many guests, so it’s mostly just a room I put shit I can’t figure out where else to put.”

“I should fit right in, then.”

He doesn’t mean anything by it, but Ben’s head snaps around as if he’d announced intentions to swallow a bottle of Tylenol. He holds up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“You gotta talk to me.” Ben’s in the open plan kitchen that takes up the rear part of the downstairs, puts down the two mugs he’s pulled from a cupboard. Sammy’s in what could generously be called the hallway, the little stretch of in-between that houses the stairs and leads from the kitchen to the living room. Ben steps closer so he’s backlit by the kitchen light, just a dark outline with his face hidden in soft shadows the sunrise is starting to penetrate. “Weeks, man. For weeks I’ve been trying to get you to stay, and you’ve been adamant. Is this what you were planning all along?”

“No.” Sammy shakes his head, crosses his arms. It’s not a lie; he knows for sure he wasn’t planning this, or anything at all. It doesn’t feel quite like the truth, though, either. “I just—I didn’t—” Want to stay. But that’s not it. He tilts his head back, looks at the ceiling and tries to blink away the prickling behind his eyelids. “I needed something to change, Ben. I couldn’t keep doing this, sit there and—talk—and—” His words cut off as his throat constricts, and he bites the side of his tongue, hard. Looks at Ben, who’s not talking for once, not having an outburst. Who’s expecting an explanation that Sammy can’t provide.

“My cover’s blown. They all fucking heard it, every single one of them. They all—know—that I never gave a shit about this goddamn town, that I’m here because—because I had to be, because—” Because why? He’s lost track of it, of why he came here, why it always seemed like the right idea to sign another contract. He shakes his head, hugs himself harder. “I wanna go home, Ben. I just—I’m tired. I wanna go home.”

“Fuck.” It’s a quiet exhale after a stretch of silence, meant for Ben more than anyone else. When Ben looks around, his eyes are bright. “I don’t know if I can deal with this, Sammy. I—don’t get me wrong, please, you gotta understand that I wanna help, I am going to help. But this—I’m not a trained fucking psychiatrist, I don’t know how to unpack this. I’m scared that all I can do here is help you find someone who _can_ help you.”

Sammy can feel his own heartbeat, a deep, slow pulsing that’s no less than suffocating. He’s not sure if the subtle note in Ben’s tone really is disappointment, but what else would it be?

It’s what he does. He disappoints. Even the fucking Void wouldn’t take him.

“Please—” His voice snags, and he swallows. Takes a breath and tries again. “Please don’t send me away. I promise I’m not—I’m not gonna do anything like this ever again.”

“Promise?” Ben’s eyes are wide and scared, and Sammy wonders what it’s like to be able to stand being this scared without tucking tail and running. “Nothing like this ever again, no ‘I’m fine, I’ll just be over here putting my fucking life in danger’—” Ben’s voice cracks. He takes a step closer. “You can’t do this, Sammy. Okay? You can’t keep pretending that you don’t feel the way you feel, that you’re fine when you’re shaking and having a panic attack. You’re skewing your own judgment, and in this town, that means that you’re gonna get yourself killed. And then I’ll be out of a best friend, and I know you think I wouldn’t care, but I fucking would. Okay? I care. A lot.”

“I know.” It’s impossible not to know that; it’s all right there, Ben’s heart right on the sleeve of his ever-present hoodie. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Well, you didn’t.” Ben smiles, and transforms himself from intense to awkward in a heartbeat. “You just scared the hell out of me. You never get to tell me I’m a bad driver again, understood?”

Sammy can’t help it, he huffs a laugh. “Fair. It’s a shame though that between the two cars, it’s mine that got wrecked. Not exactly a status symbol, but at least the suspension didn’t sound like a rat being tasered.”

“Fuck off, my car’s great. It’s got personality.” Ben grabs the mugs again that he pulled out earlier, rummages around in another cupboard. “I was gonna make tea, because tea’s good for fixing things. What kind do you like?”

Sammy rubs the back of his neck, comes away with a handful of dried blood and leaves. Pulls a grimace at the mess. “I think I’d kinda like to get cleaned up, if you don’t mind. I’m lugging around like half of Perdition Wood in my hair.”

“Sure.” Ben comes over, points up the stairs. “Towels are in the cupboard, bathroom’s the middle door—”

“I know where the bathroom is. I’ve been here before, Ben.”

“Right.” Ben gives a small laugh, and his eyes search Sammy’s face. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to say something that’ll blow the lid right back off of everything Sammy’s just carefully boxed away, but then he just slaps a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “I’ll put some clothes outside the door. Sweatpants or something. They’ll be a little short, but—”

“Three quarter cargos are coming back, it’s fine.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Go shower, tall old man. You want tea later, I’ll be down here. Your bedroom’s the one above the kitchen, if you’d rather sleep.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

“Yeah. Don’t mention it.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s strange to dream of darkness. Darkness and sleep go hand in hand, so darkness starring as its own character in dreams is fairly unsettling.

In this dream, darkness leaves room for little else. It’s a viscous, sticky mass with its own kind of gravity. Like a black hole, it’s chipping away at the mind that contains it, breaks it down piece by piece and makes it disappear into itself.

Part of Sammy’s awareness knows that he’s asleep, but he’s not sure it makes a difference. It doesn’t feel like this darkness plays by the rules of any state of consciousness. Who says that waking up will make it disappear? Who says that he’s not already awake? If the darkness already took him, this might very well be his new waking reality.

Eventually, his eyes focus on something. It’s a glimpse of shiny blue, a metallic surface catching sunlight and reflecting it. He focuses on that, uses the light to claw his way out of the paralyzing swamp of unconsciousness, until he can put a name to what he’s seeing.

It’s a birthday garland. It’s the H from “Happy Birthday”, cut from metallic blue material and peeking out of one of the boxes Ben’s got sitting along the wall of his spare room. It’s catching a ray of afternoon sun falling in through the window. Sammy forgot to close the blinds before he went to bed.

He rolls over onto his back, stares up at the ceiling and listens to his body. It seems whole enough, functional enough. Real. He curls his fingers under the sheets, reassures himself that they’re still attached. No part of him was taken by the darkness. Not this time.

“Fuck.” He mutters it quietly to himself, closes his eyes and stares at the reddish swirl behind his eyelids. This is probably the Void; these are the shadows that are taking Cecil. That took Debbie. That took Jack, over three years ago. The thought makes him kick the sheets aside, makes him blink his eyes open, and sit up.

It’s the middle of the afternoon. He should go and see what Ben’s up to.

His hair’s still damp, and at the same time starting to feel greasy at the back of his head. This is what happens when you go to bed without properly drying it. At least there’s no blood caking the strands together anymore. The back of his head is still sore, a low pain that’s sending pulses of discomfort around to his temples and the top of his skull. His sweatpants are actually Ben’s, and end a good inch above his ankles. The t-shirt’s too tight, too. It’s not exactly news, but Ben is a seriously tiny dude.

When he arrives downstairs looking like a teenager after an unfortunate growth spurt, Ben doesn’t hold back with the pointing and laughing. He also directs Sammy to a stack of boxes next to the door, though. Apparently, while Sammy was asleep, Ben went to his old apartment and convinced the landlord to let him collect some of Sammy’s stuff.

Sammy mumbles a thank you and withdraws to the bathroom with a change of clothes that actually fit. He takes a moment to make himself presentable until Ben shouts his name from downstairs.

“You coming down? There’s food.”

“Be right there!”

Sammy spends a couple moments deliberating where to put his toothbrush before he leaves it on the side of the sink. On the stairs, the smell of pancakes makes him flare his nostrils.

“You made pancakes?”

“Hell no,” Ben laughs as he pulls a plate from the microwave. He waves a hand at the table, which is decked out in what seems like every American breakfast staple imaginable. “I got some take-out from Rose’s while I was out. Figured you’d be hungry when you wake up.”

“Oh.” Sammy takes a seat, surveys the collection of Styrofoam boxes. There’s even a tall thermos wafting steam from its spout and distributing the unmistakable smell of Rose’s trademark coffee. “Looks like you ordered the entire menu.”

Ben shrugs as he joins him. “Anything we don’t eat, most of it’ll keep. Breakfast food tastes fine cold.”

Sammy’s not sure that’s true, but he doesn’t argue. He goes for coffee and is trying to decide between pancakes and waffles when Ben pulls up something on his phone and shoves it under Sammy’s nose.

“I’m gonna get one of these.”

Sammy blinks. The phone’s showing the website of the Northwest Self Storage in Big Pine. “Uh—all right.”

“They’re not expensive, probably less per square foot than I’m paying here. Shoulda done this ages ago, but you know how it is.” Ben shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth and keeps talking with his mouth full. “Already called up Burt about amending the contract. He’s down, he’s just not gonna be in town till mid-June so we might have to wait till then. I’ll just have to clean out the closet, but it’s fine. Half of the stuff in there I haven’t worn since high school.”

Sammy grasps at the pieces of information being spewed at him, gives up, and shakes his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The spare room. You need a place to stay, right?”

“I—” He does, he supposes. He hadn’t really thought about it.

Ben nods, encouraging. “Yeah. You, me, shared lease. I just need to get rid of some of my trash. Don’t need an entire roomful of it, right?”

“Right.” He thinks of the boxes stacked along the wall of the spare room, the birthday garland sticking out of one of them. It looks like something you’d get for a child. Is it Ben’s birthday garland his mom put up in the living room until teenage Ben decided he was too old for that kind of thing? It seems entirely possible, if Ben’s enough of a hoarder to still have clothes he wore in high school. Ben’s entire life might be in those boxes.

“I asked Troy to take care of your car.” Ben’s already moved on. If Sammy wasn’t suffering from whiplash before, he’s getting a feeling he might after this conversation. “He says it’s probably totaled, but he has a guy he can ask to take a look. He went on about the frame being fucked, though. Troy knows cars, who knew?” Ben smiles. “Hope you weren’t too attached.”

“Ah, no.” Sammy shakes his head, nudges a piece of waffle from one side of his plate to the other. Breakfast looks and smells delicious, but the idea of putting things in his mouth makes him feel vaguely ill. “It’s just a car. I traded my old one for it when I left L.A.”

“L.A., huh?”

Sammy looks up. Ben’s watching him, eyebrows raised. “Uh, yeah. You know. I came here from the city. From L.A.”

“You never said it was L.A., Sammy.”

“Right.” He supposes he never did specify. It doesn’t seem like it matters, but maybe it does. “Well, it was. Culver City, right near the 405. There was this—this Mexican place. It was right around the corner.” They’d go there sometimes, often enough for the owners to recognize them. He doesn’t know if they suspected, but they must have, right? Two men showing up together on a regular basis, never in the company of anyone else, clearly nearby residents—it doesn’t take much to put two and two together. He pushes his plate away. “As a city, L.A.’s really not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Mhm.” Ben eyes Sammy’s abandoned plate, but doesn’t comment. “I always thought San Francisco. Guess you seem more like the NorCal than the SoCal type. Don’t you hate hot weather?”

“I do.” Sammy runs his finger along the rim of his mug, chases down a drop of coffee that’s escaping. “We were talking about moving further up the coast. L.A.’s where the money is, but the city—” He shakes his head, remembers that feeling of stepping outside and knowing he might as well be live on the radio. L.A.’s a city of performers, and that’s what the city expects you to do, every second of every day. “We were thinking Seattle. Portland, maybe. Something a little smaller.” He puts the mug down, stares at his hands. No ring, not even the tan line of one. They agreed it’d be too risky to wear any. “That never happened.”

“Hey.” Ben’s hand settles on his wrist. “It can still happen. It will.”

It won’t, though. Sammy stares at Ben’s hand, can’t think of the words it’ll take to make Ben understand that even if by some insane, improbable circumstance Jack came back from the Void, nothing would be like it was. “I’m not that person anymore, Ben.” The words feel distant, like he’s listening to them being said one room over. “I’m not—Jack’s fiancé anymore, I’m somebody new, and I don’t—” He sucks in a breath, but it won’t go, a stinging in his chest blocking his airways. The physical pain pulls him back into his body, and he tugs his wrist away, Ben’s hand on it suddenly too warm and too heavy. “I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“That’s okay.”

Ben’s voice is soft; it’s the voice he uses when he’s trying to be calming. Placating. Fuck you, Ben. Sammy doesn’t need placating. He gets to his feet, the scraping of his chair drowning out Ben’s suggestions of inane things they could talk about instead.

“I’m going back to bed.” He can’t look at Ben, so he talks to the table, to the ridiculous amount of food that Ben bought and that Sammy barely touched. “Thanks for breakfast, Ben.”

“That’s okay, Sammy. Anytime.”

It’s obvious that Ben’s trying hard not to sound as wretched as he feels. As much as Sammy loves the guy, there’s only so much he can deal with, and that limit’s been well surpassed. He withdraws to the spare room, shuts the door, and crawls under the blanket.

Right now, letting the darkness eat up his mind doesn’t sound like the worst idea he’s ever had.

\------

Sammy’s leaving, and there’s nothing Ben can do.

Correction: there’s nothing Ben _should_ do. He _could_ run after Sammy, grab him by the arm and tell him to stay, wrestle him back into the chair and force-feed him waffles drenched in syrup until the sugar shock catapults him out of the low that he’s in and makes him believe, finally, that things are going to be okay.

Because that’s real likely to happen. It’s how real life works, for sure.

Sammy’s steps even out as he reaches the top of the stairs. There’s the click of the door, more steps right above Ben’s head. Sammy’s going to bed, like he said he would, like he didn’t just sleep for ten hours straight. Like sleeping is the only thing in the bag for him now that he made a promise not to punch his own ticket.

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_. 

Ben’s kitchen table is a rickety old plastic construction that he got off Craigslist when he was just out of college. He probably should’ve replaced it by now; he does have a real job at this point, one that pays real money into his bank account. But the table was one of the first pieces of furniture he got for himself in his adult life, and Ben will be the first (well, the third) to admit that he can be sentimental at times.

Point is, the table weighs a whopping total of maybe four pounds, so when Ben grabs the edge and shoves with all his might, it does a pretty spectacular skid across the kitchen floor. Inertia does its part, spills take-out boxes, dishes, and cutlery on the floor. It’s a mess, and it’s a goddamn noisy mess, makes Ben duck his head and wince until the last of the knives has come to a clattery rest against the side of the kitchen counter.

No sound from upstairs, though. Sammy Steven’s got some important sleeping to do, and he won’t be deterred by his friend’s noisy cutlery tantrum.

Ben supposes that’s kind of fair.

As always, cleaning up the mess takes a disproportionate amount of time longer than making it. When he’s done, the floor’s still kind of sticky, but he’s got a phone call to make that he can’t put off any longer. His phone’s sticky, too; it fell display-first into a puddle of syrup. Honestly, fuck syrup.

Emily’s number is right there in his recent calls, but she’s not the person he needs to speak to. He considered it, because Emily is great and amazing and has the answer to most things (possibly all things), but Emily is also a person he’d like to think of him as not completely inept. Calling her when he’s minutes away from ugly crying because he doesn’t fucking know what to do, that’s not making a case for himself.

So he scrolls past her number, swears under his breath as syrup makes his display glitch, and finds the entry that reads “Best Mom 14/10”.

Fuck the haters. Just because he’s an adult doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to call his mom anymore.

Hearing her voice goes a long way towards calming him down, if only because she immediately clocks that something is wrong, and he has to scramble to keep her from coming over guns blazing to take out whatever evil is upsetting her boy. Once he’s convinced her that he’s not calling for immediate back-up but rather for advice, she calms down enough so he can tell her about Sammy.

“So he is living with you now?” Betty Arnold is a die-hard Sammy Stevens fan, ever since the great charm offensive of 2016, when Ben introduced the two and Sammy proceeded to smarm her socks off. “It’s good of you to take care of him, Ben.”

“That’s just it, Mom, I don’t know if it is.” Irritated, he scrubs at his cheek, where the phone left a dab of syrup. He’s switched to headset by now, and grabs a rag from the kitchen to clean the phone’s display some more. “He’s a mess, he’s properly depressed, and I don’t know if I shouldn’t be, like, googling places to get him some professional help. Off the top of my head, I can think of more than ten ways to kill yourself in this apartment alone. I don’t know if it’s safe for him to even be here.”

“You’ve always had an overactive imagination. Five ways I’d believe, but more than ten?”

“Mom—”

“Look, Ben, you know him better than anyone. Anyone in this town, at least, but it doesn’t sound like he’s opened up to a lot of people in his life in general.”

“You can say that again,” Ben mutters.

“Exactly. So you are uniquely equipped to make this judgment call. If you think you can trust him not to stick his head into your oven—do you even have an oven?”

“I—yes, Mom, I do have an oven, and it’s not—” His finger slips as he’s vigorously scrubbing the phone’s display, dislodges the little gadget in his palm. He scrambles to catch it before it can hit the floor and yank the headphone’s plug from the socket. The movement brings him level with said oven. His stomach twists at the sight. “Don’t say stuff like that, okay? This is serious.”

“I’m sorry. I know it is. All I’m saying is that you know him best. If anyone knows what he needs, it’s you. Be it professional help or—whatever else you come up with.”

He sits down with his back against the counter, rests his forearms on his knees and stares at the dark rectangle of the oven door. It’s scary to realize that it’s got the potential to kill. It’s scary to think about how many things have the potential to kill, how easily they can be used to do just that. It’s scary to think that he’s meant to know if it scares Sammy, too, or if Sammy just sees opportunities. “So, no pressure, yeah?”

“You can handle it.” Easy confidence, as always. Way more than Ben thinks is justified. But it’s always been like that with his mom. “I’m proud of you, Benjamin.”

“Right. Thanks.”

After he hangs up, he stays where he is, stares at the oven and tries to figure out what it is that Sammy needs. Sleep, apparently, though that seems more like an escape than anything. Jack, obviously, except there’s what Sammy said just before he shut down. _I’m not Jack’s fiancé. I’m somebody new_.

“Ominous as hell, dude,” he mutters as he climbs to his feet, paces over to where he’s got a blackboard mounted on the kitchen wall. It’s one of those grocery list things that’s meant for writing notes to yourself, stuff like “pick up milk” or “buy some sugar”. Right now, it’s got a hairy dick and balls drawn on it, courtesy of Troy Krieghauser after half a six pack of Orchard’s hard cider. Ben wipes it off and puts Sammy’s name at the top. Underneath, he writes “needs”.

“Sammy Stevens,” he reads out, quietly repeats the name to himself. “Sammy Stevens, Sammy Stevens, come on, Sammy Stevens, what do you need?”

Absentmindedly, he raises the chalk to his mouth, almost starts chewing on it before he catches himself and goes for his knuckle instead. How the hell is he supposed to know what Sammy needs? The man’s about as communicative as a rock when it comes to his wants and needs.

Except that’s not true. Ben’s mouth gapes open as he stares at the board. Sammy’s never straight-up told him what he needs, but he’s—

“He’s told me what he wants.” He grabs the rag, wipes “needs” off the board and puts “wants” instead. Underneath, he prints three words.

“To go home.” He underlines “home” a couple of times, takes a step back. “Sammy Stevens wants to go home.”

His shoulders slump. That’s it. Sammy wants to go home. He’s fucking E.T. and wants nothing more than to go somewhere where—

“Where he can talk to people. Where he can talk to people and be understood.” Ben’s throat constricts. “Can’t blame you, buddy.”

He doesn’t leave the writing up. Considering how little Sammy likes Ben’s notebooks, he probably likes a whiteboard with his own name on it even less. He makes another half-hearted attempt at getting the syrup off the floor before he decides that it’ll have to wait till tomorrow. He hasn’t slept in what feels like a lifetime.

\------

The next morning, he waits until nine thirty before he heads upstairs to wake up Sammy.

Sammy’s door is firmly shut, just like it was last night. Ben’s heard him walk around during the night, but it was probably just bathroom breaks. Even Sammy can’t sleep for what’s now coming up to more than twenty-four hours without taking a couple of those.

He knocks and enters, the breakfast tray he’s carrying balanced against his hip.

The air in the room is stale. The entire room feels stale. It’s like Sammy’s sadness has penetrated every corner and turned Ben’s normally quite neutral spare room into a tar pit of depression. It makes him want to back right out into the hallway, but he grits his teeth and keeps walking.

Sammy’s got his back to the door, sheets pulled up almost all the way over his head. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Ben entering.

Ben puts the tray down and perches on the bed. “Hey. Sammy?”

No reaction. Maybe Sammy’s a really deep sleeper, or maybe he just doesn’t want to wake up. Tough shit. Ben takes his shoulder, squeezes. “Hey. I know you’re trying for a Guinness Record here, but if you don’t wake up soon, you’ll be in violation of paragraph eight of the Baptist Code of Moral Righteousness.”

Finally, a sign of life. Sammy turns his face into the pillow, shoulders coming up as he squeezes his eyes shut. “’m not Baptist.”

“Coulda fooled me.” Ben tugs on the sheet, tries to pry it from Sammy’s grip. “Come on. I brought you breakfast. It comes without a strategic battle plan briefing this time, promise.”

Tension bleeds from Sammy as he exhales a sigh, lets go of the sheet so Ben can tug it down. Ben waits, watches Sammy turn his head and blink blearily into the light. “You’re pretty determined about this breakfast thing.”

“Yeah, well. You gotta eat.” God knows when Sammy did that last. Definitely not in the past twenty-four hours. He gives him a nudge. “Come on. Sit up.”

The effort it takes for Sammy to do so is obvious. He manages, though, drags himself up without a further word of complaint and pools the sheet in his lap. With a grimace, he tugs off his hairband to tie back the strands that escaped overnight.

It ends up looking a mess. Ben’s seen Sammy’s hair in various states of tousled, but right now the thing on Sammy’s head just looks like an adolescent magpie’s failed attempt at nesting. He tries not to let his thoughts show on his face, but that’s a skill he never quite mastered.

“Fuck off.” Sammy's ears grow red. “I’ll fix it later.” He tugs on a strand, pulls a face. “Or maybe I’ll just cut it off. This is all a little 2016.”

“You can’t cut your hair, Sammy. You don’t wanna be called the Britney Spears of King Falls.”

“Wouldn’t be that far off.” Sammy stretches his neck to peer past Ben at the tray. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Overnight oats.” Ben leans over to grab the glass off the tray, nearly overbalances as he tries to get the spoon, as well. He catches himself, and makes sure not to draw attention to the way Sammy jumped at Ben’s wobble. So Sammy’s a little jumpy. That’s fine. “They’re from two nights ago, but I don’t think they get worse from being in the fridge longer.”

“Depends how long.” Sammy takes the glass, eyes its contents. Despite his words, he doesn’t look completely disgusted. “You make these yourself?”

“I did. I know it’s hard to believe, but I do sometimes make food for myself, like a real grown-ass adult.”

It’s a little harsh, and in all probability meant mostly for his mom. Sammy’s eyes flicker, uncertain, so Ben pats his leg, clambers onto the bed to sit cross-legged at the foot of it. “Eat your breakfast, Sammy, and be grateful I didn’t put spinach in it.”

“Ew.” Sammy finally starts unscrewing the glass. “You know that somewhere, someone is putting spinach in overnight oats. Not to be down on healthy eating, but some things are just fundamentally wrong.”

“Like spinach. And tiny vegetable trees.”

“Tiny—what?”

“Vegetable trees.” Ben wrinkles his nose. “Some people call them broccoli.”

Sammy shakes his head, pokes the spoon into the glass to scoop up a blueberry. “Most people do, I think.”

“Whatever. They’re green, they’re incorrectly sized, and I don’t want them in my breakfast.”

Sammy doesn’t say anything, but he huffs a tiny laugh and puts the blueberry into his mouth, and that’s really all Ben wants. He lets the silence continue for a bit, doesn’t want to disturb this fragile bubble of near-normalcy they’ve managed to create.

Sammy’s shoulders gradually relax. He’s halfway through the oats when Ben decides it’s time to proceed.

“I’ve been thinking.” He lets it stand as an opener, plucks at a loose thread in the comforter as he waits for Sammy’s reaction.

It’s non-verbal, just a twitch of an eyebrow as Sammy barely looks up. Good enough, Ben supposes.

“You know that I want you here, right?” He’s smart enough to know that he’s not gonna get an answer as easy as that, so he continues. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’ve printed the equivalent of six million Redwoods trees in contracts for you to sign. I don’t know how to make it any clearer that I do really want you here, but, like. Again. I want you here.”

Sammy gives a tiny little nod and starts doing that thing again where he pushes his food around instead of eating it. “I know, Ben.”

“Hey.” He reaches out to lightly slap Sammy’s blanketed feet. It does what he intended; Sammy looks up. “Say that again while looking at me.”

“Ben—”

“Just do it.”

The shit that’s happening behind Sammy’s eyes is more savage than Peter Parker getting snapped on Titan. It takes all of Ben’s considerable willpower not to look away.

Eventually, Sammy exhales a shaky sigh. “I know you do,” he says. His voice has that stilted quality it gets when he’s saying things that his emotional firewall doesn’t want to let through. “I don’t get it, to be honest, but you—well. You’ve made it very clear.”

“Right.” Ben wets his lips, draws on every reserve of self-control to keep his voice level. “We’ll work on the getting it bit. We’ll get to that. Right now, I just need you to trust that me begging you for weeks to stay doesn’t mean that I secretly want you to leave. My life’s not better, or easier, or in any way more positive without you in it than with.”

Sammy’s eyebrows twitch. “I think grammar abandoned you there, buddy.”

“Fuck’s sake, man. Don’t deflect.”

Sammy gives another one of those shaky sighs, starts poking the spoon into the oats again. “Sorry. All right. You want me around. I got it. I’m getting it.”

“Good.” Ben chews on the side of his tongue, gears up for the next volley. “I’d be happy if you stayed here till you look and sound like Herschel. I’d do the show with you till the world inevitably gets destroyed in a nuclear holocaust in 2054. That’s my life plan, right now. I just wanna sit on that mountain with you and do a running commentary on all the ways the world’s going to shit, ‘cause that’s—” He frowns, unsure about the words coming out of his mouth. They sound true enough, they feel true enough. They also feel like something he won’t be able to take back.

Fuck it, though. He’s never been big on thinking before opening his mouth; he’s not gonna start now.

“That’s my happy place, Sammy. As weird as it sounds, if that’s the rest of my life, I’m good. I don’t need anything more.”

The look Sammy’s giving him can’t be described with words in any language Ben knows. Granted, he doesn’t know all that many, but even if he did, he’s pretty sure he’d struggle to put a description to the glint in Sammy’s eyes, the look of sadness and fear and—hope? Maybe? Maybe. Somewhere in there, way in the back.

“I get that it’s not for you,” he says, ignores the way the words make his heart clench. Sammy needs more from life than a small town AM radio show. Sammy thinks bigger, lives bigger, than Ben ever could. “But I also—I dunno, Sammy. Is there anywhere you’ve got that comes closer, for you?”

“Closer to my happy place?” The hope’s gone again. Sammy just looks sad, shakes his head with a resigned little laugh. “I don’t think I’ve got one of those.”

 _What about Jack?_ Ben wants to press until Sammy finally opens his mouth. What about Jack Wright? What about this guy that Ben knows next to nothing about, that Sammy doesn’t seem to want to share with anyone? How do you love a guy and refuse to even mention him for three years?

Is this what Sammy would do to him? If Ben got taken by the rainbow lights, if he disappeared into the Void. Would Sammy just pretend they never met?

He doesn’t want to think about that. Looks down at his hands, slowly curls them to fists as he tries to get himself to focus.

“What about your parents?” He meets Sammy’s watchful eyes. “You got those, right?”

Sammy scoffs with enough disdain to make Ben jump. “I got those. Or something. I got people who biologically produced me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Right.” Ben thinks of his mom, thinks of all the things she does that drive him nuts. Thinks of how much his heart hurts at the idea of despising her as much as Sammy seems to despise his parents.

Sometimes it’s like all Sammy’s got for people is contempt. The best his own fiancé could hope for was silence. Ben knows he’s being phenomenally unfair thinking like that, but it’s kind of hard not to.

“Hey.” Like he flipped a switch, suddenly Sammy’s voice is softer. The sheet Ben’s sitting on twitches as Sammy tugs on it. “Ben. Hey.”

“What?” Ben looks up, hates the quiver he can hear in his own voice. Great going, Ben Arnold. You’re meant to be the strong one here.

But that’s not what it feels like when he meets Sammy’s eyes. Sammy’s hair is still a mess, there’s still a set of dark circles under his eyes. How he managed that after sleeping for a week is anyone’s guess. The look on Sammy’s face, though, is the look of a guy who’s about to shove his guts back in and get his squad to safety.

Ben’s gonna hurl from how much he fucking loves this man.

“Come here.” Sammy puts the half-eaten oats aside, flips the sheet back. “Come on.”

This is not how any of this was meant to go, but there’s not really anything to do about it other than crawl up there and clamber under the blanket. He wraps his arms around Sammy, tries to hold him back at least as tightly as Sammy’s holding him.

“I don’t mean to put all of this on you.” Sammy’s voice is steady, but Ben’s close enough that he can hear the tremor deep in Sammy’s chest. “You don’t deserve my shit, Ben, and I can’t put into words how—” His voice snags. “How grateful I am for what you’re doing. You’re—”

Ben knows what’s coming; lauds about how he’s a hero, a shining example of a friend, boyfriend, man, and human being. He frees a hand from the tight embrace, reaches up and blindly fumbles until he can put his fingers over Sammy’s mouth.

“I need you to be okay, Sammy. All right?” It seems really simple when he says it like that. Doesn’t seem worth all this hemming and hawing, all the self-doubt and -flagellation. Sammy’s lips twitch like he wants to talk, so Ben presses down a little harder. “It’s fine if it takes time. If you gotta be a raging dick—that’s _fine_ , as long as it’s part of you getting yourself right. I’ll put up with any shit you wanna throw at me, as long as it’s not the sort of shit that makes you worse rather than better. So, just—keep that distinction in mind, okay?”

He keeps his fingers where they are for another couple moments to let his words sink in. When he finally pulls them back, Sammy still takes a few moments to reply.

“All right, Ben,” he says eventually. If Ben didn’t fucking hate that word, he’d say he sounds chastised. “No harmful shit. Only constructive shit. Got it.”

“Good.” He wraps both his arms firmly around Sammy again. “Now eat your fucking oats.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to chapters being hard, this one's kind of short. It also ends on a bit of a somber note. Don't worry, though, Chapter 4 is where things will start to look up. Thanks for reading!

Sammy eats his fucking oats, and he takes a fucking shower. He gets his hair sorted out, and he helps Ben get the spare room sorted out.

For the first couple of weeks or so, functioning takes a near inhuman amount of effort. The smallest tasks leave him exhausted, and he takes more naps than a newborn baby and an old granny combined. A lot of them he takes on Ben’s couch, more often than not with his head in Ben’s lap while _Buffy_ ’s playing on the TV via Ben’s laptop.

Ben’s never seen it. Everyone needs to have seen _Buffy_ at least once in their lives, so this is as good an opportunity as any.

Ben has the patience of a saint. He seems to have meant it when he said he’s fine dealing with any shit Sammy might want to throw at him. He never complains, never gets annoyed when Sammy can’t seem to get himself to say more than single-syllable words for hours at a time, when Sammy ends up freaking himself out because he went and thought about the wrong thing—the darkness, Jack’s voice in the darkness, Jack in general, Walt. The fact that he got Walt killed. That’s a big one. Sammy hasn’t managed to think about that for longer than a few minutes yet without his chest muscles trying to choke him to death.

Ben calls them panic attacks. It’s probably what they are, but it sounds too damn dramatic for Sammy’s tastes. They’re stupid physical reactions to things that can’t actually hurt him, and they annoy the hell out of him, make this whole thing much harder than it already is. The one time Ben actually sees him cry is about a week after the station burns down, when Sammy comes out of an especially bad one with his heart racing and his body shaking and his mind convinced that this is what the rest of his life is going to be like.

It’s really fucking embarrassing for Ben to have a front-row seat to all of this the way he does, but Sammy also knows that there’s no chance in hell he could be doing this on his own. He can count himself lucky that he’s found the one person in the world who’s actually willing to deal with this, who manages to maintain an enthusiastic, unshakeable belief that things are going to be okay. Sometimes, late at night when he’s almost asleep, Sammy wonders if Ben even is of this world. Nobody is as adamantly optimistic as that, not unless they’re taking drugs. Maybe Ben’s some sort of guardian angel sent by a deity Sammy hasn’t believed in since he was old enough to say “no”.

It’s fucking King Falls. Anything’s possible.

It’s coming up to three weeks since the final episode of the Sammy and Ben Show when Sammy finds himself in a booth at Rose’s. Breakfast’s been overnight oats ever since Sammy found out that Ben likes them. It’s something he can do, it’s a nightly ritual he’s started relying on to close down his day and remind his brain that it’s time to shut down for the night. Having breakfast prepared for him is also something that makes Ben disproportionally flustered and pleased. Sammy’s deliberately not thought about the whys of that too much, just enjoys this one little thing he can do for his friend.

Today breakfast is at Rose’s, though. It’s a break in their routine, and Sammy’s not been doing great with those. He hates how fragile he feels, how any little thing can throw him off and turn a manageable day into one he spends hiding under the comforter on the sofa. But this is for Ben.

Ben took a long damn time to tell Sammy about Emily. Sammy assumes it was a misguided attempt at being tactful, Ben not wanting to gush about the fact that his dream girl finally said yes with Sammy being in the place he’s in. But Ben’s Ben, so it really only took Ben trying to say Emily’s name in his most neutral tone possible for Sammy to know that something had changed between the two.

He finally came out with it about a week ago, tried his hardest to contain his flailing as he told Sammy about the kiss they shared on the air before Sammy called in and ruined the night for everyone. Sammy’s happy for him. He thinks he is, anyway; it’s hard to put a name to emotions these days. But telling the story put a glow in Ben’s eyes and a grin on his face, and those are both good things.

Ben was less happy when Sammy started telling him to spend time with his girlfriend rather than his depressed roommate-slash-ex-co-host. He insisted that he totally had, that he’d snuck out here and there whenever he felt it’d be fine to leave Sammy alone for a few hours. Sammy got a bit annoyed, unhappy with the thought of being yet another thing keeping Ben and Emily apart. So with his usual pragmatism that still always manages to surprise Sammy, Ben decided that Sammy was simply going to join them.

So here they are at Rose’s, Ben and Emily sharing the bench opposite from Sammy and making Sammy feel less like a third wheel than he expected. Emily had greeted him with a hug, a gesture that made Sammy first freeze up and then feel like an idiot for it. She followed the hug with a lot of kind words about how worried she’d been and how glad she was to see Sammy out and about. Sammy hopes that the smile he gave her in response looked less fake than it felt. He appreciates her compassion, honestly feels a bit awed by it. But there is no way that any reminder of the fact that the most embarrassing, most personal moments of his life aired live on air for a whole town to hear won’t make him want to stop existing on the spot.

The conversation got easier after that. Emily told them about a new book group she’s starting up at the library (well, she told Ben about it and Sammy listened in). She also gave them the newest on the base the military set up around the remains of the station, which seems to be that they’re packing up and moving out. There’s a part of Sammy that deeply regrets that the one time in his life that he’s actually witnessing what’s clearly a secret military cover-up operation straight out the _X-Files_ , he’s too fucked up to investigate and report on it. The rest of him can’t really think about the station being no more than a pile of rubble without feeling like he’s teetering on the edge of an abyss.

Eventually, they’re down to a mug of coffee each, except for Emily, who’s been too distracted talking to Ben to eat her pancakes at any sort of a normal speed. Sammy excuses himself to follow a call of nature. When he’s done and washing his hands, he spends a few moments staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

It’s a miracle Ben hasn’t mistaken him for a raccoon yet and chased him out of the house. He always thought bags under your eyes went away if you slept a lot.

He’s not even back in the restaurant properly when he can already hear the commotion. Greg Frickard’s high, nasal whine echoes down the corridor and puts his teeth on edge. He stops, puts a hand against the wall. He could withdraw into the bathroom and wait this one out off-stage. It’d probably be the smart thing to do.

Then he hears Ben’s voice, tense and sharp with that shaky undertone of barely controlled rage that he gets, and his feet start moving again.

“… sit here and listen to this regurgitated heap of shit you’re spewing.”

Sammy turns a corner. Frickard’s next to their table, standing with his arms crossed and his shoulders pulled up in exaggerated outrage. Ben’s still seated, but only barely. As Sammy’s closing in, he pushes out of the booth, draws himself up to his full height, which actually brings him almost to eye level with Frickard.

“Get the fuck out of here, and don’t you dare ever speak to us again, or so help me God I will punch you so hard you—”

“Hey.” Sammy says it before he puts a placating hand on Ben’s shoulder. He’s been around enough hot-tempered people in his life to have learned his lesson about startling them when they’re gearing up. “Hey, hey. What’s going on?”

Ben jumps, but he doesn’t knee-jerk his elbow into Sammy’s face, so that’s a win. Instead, he points a shaking finger at Frickard. “This fucking shit stain thought it’d be okay to come over and accuse me of—”

“Oh, look who it is.” Frickard’s voice reaches a whole new register. “Come to protect your boyfriend, have you, Shotgun?”

Sammy’s guts twist at that tone, at the expression on that face, frightened wide eyes accusing the world of not living to fulfill this small man’s sense of entitlement. Not so long ago he might have gotten a kick out of this, would’ve considered it a welcome chance to cut down a self-important, small-minded idiot with sharp words and cruel wit.

Things have changed, though. Cruel wit only gets you so far, and it doesn’t stop the feeling of dread he gets at the mere sound of Frickard’s voice.

“How about you fuck off.” He tightens his hand on Ben’s shoulder. _Leave it, Ben. He’s not worth it_. “Nobody wants to hear what you’ve got to say.”

“Oh, I think they do. I think they want to hear from _me_ more than they want to hear from _you_.” Frickard pushes his shoulders out, squares up like a teenage monkey making a play for pack leader. “I looked you up, Sammy Stevens. What even has a low-brow, cheap shot-taking shock jock got to say to King Falls that King Falls can’t get down at the trailer park watering hole? And even that’s just a bunch of lies, right? At this point, you’ve made it widely known you’re just an ass-munching, suicidal fa—”

Sammy’s developed brain shuts down. It’s just brainstem instincts right now, age-old fight or flight reactions. He doesn’t even feel it when his fist connects with Frickard’s jaw bone, can barely hear the man’s screech through the roaring in his ears. He needs to shut him down, he needs to shut him _up_ , because this is a public place and the things Frickard’s saying—yelling—were never, _ever_ meant for public consumption.

He can’t allow Frickard to make him look weak. Looking weak gets you killed.

Eventually, it’s Ben’s voice that gets through. He’s screaming Sammy’s name, and as soon as Sammy can hear that, he can also feel the grip on his arm, clinging and yanking and trying to pull him back. He lets it happen, almost slips as the loss of his resistance knocks them both off balance. Ben’s arms wrap around him, tight. With a jolt, feeling returns to Sammy’s limbs.

“Fuck.” He can barely breathe, sucks in air and tries to unclench his chest. He’s shaking, and Ben’s iron grip isn’t helping. “Shit, Ben, let—” It takes every ounce of self-control not to start thrashing. “Let go, I’m good, let me _go_!”

“All right!” Ben’s arms disappear. Sammy stumbles over to the booth just in time for his knees to give way. The smooth surface of the table feels hot-cold-wrong under his palm, and he curls a grip around the edge.

The diner’s complete pandemonium. There’s people running and shouting, there’s someone wailing. It’s Frickard, of course; he’s crouched on the floor, halfway under a table with his hands clamped over his face. Blood is spurting from between his fingers and pooling on the floor tiles. Sammy’s gorge rises at the sight. He turns away, hunches over the table that he was calmly eating breakfast at no more than fifteen minutes ago.

Except that puts Emily in his line of sight. Emily, who’s pressed herself into the corner with a hand clamped over her mouth, wide eyes staring. She’s looking at him like she’s not sure she won’t be next.

“Sammy.”

It’s Ben’s voice, aghast and shaky. Sammy remembers that he’s here for Ben, that they came here so Ben could have a good time for once. It makes him wish he’d finished what he started, that night he was trying to leave town.

“I’m sorry.” His throat feels rough, like he’s been shouting. “I’m sorry, I just—I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” It’s really not, and Sammy can hear it in Ben’s voice, but he appreciates the hand that settles on his shoulder all the same. “It’s—Jesus, I think Rose’s called the cops. I—” Ben’s hand tightens. “This was totally on Frickard, I’ll tell that to anyone, he’s a fucking menace—”

Sammy can’t listen right now. He wants it all to go away; he wants to be back in Ben’s apartment where things are quiet and calm and fucking predictable. The next best thing is to put his face into his hands and close his eyes, so that’s what he does.

Ben’s hand on his shoulder is like a fucking lifeline, and because Ben’s Ben, he knows to leave it there until Deputy Lynch shows up to take Sammy in.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor content warning at the end of the chapter.

Frickard doesn’t end up pressing charges.

He’s gung-ho for it at first, calls from the hospital where he’s getting his face fixed to express his nasal outrage about unstable individuals like Samuel Stevens running loose in King Falls, and swears to bring him to justice for the sake of this beautiful town. The lawyer he hires is a personal injury guy from two towns over who’s run ads on the show, and who draws up a statement that sounds like it’s been pieced together from _Judge Judy_ transcripts. It brings home to Sammy once again how different this place is to the one he used to live in.

He phones up a guy he used to be in regular contact with during his Shotgun Sammy days. A strongly worded call from a big city lawyer peppered with threats of a counter-suit involving discriminatory harassment of the first degree is all it takes to shut Personal Injury Guy down. The lawyers agree on a deal where Sammy apologizes and pays Frickard’s medical bills in exchange for Frickard dropping the issue. It’s all done and dusted within the time it takes Ben to try and scrape together the bail money.

When Ben picks Sammy up from the Sheriff’s office, the sun’s setting over King Falls in a spectacular display of reds and yellows. Sammy sits in the passenger seat of Ben’s car and watches the town pass by, wonders if there’s a single person left in it who even wants him here. He’s not been on the radio for weeks. Even the folks who used to like him for providing entertainment in the small hours of the morning probably don’t really give a shit now that the station’s not going to be airing anything anytime soon. Sammy’s not exactly integrated himself into the community, and people are quick to forget.

There’s Ben, of course. Ben wants him here. He herds him into the apartment and makes him sit on the couch, grabs a handful of take-out menus from the kitchen before he joins him. Sammy hasn’t eaten since this morning, but the thought of greasy delivery pizza makes his stomach twist all the same.

Ben seems to share his lack of enthusiasm, flips through the menus with barely-concealed disgust. Eventually, he tosses them aside, shifts like he doesn’t quite know how to sit still. Crosses his arms.

“How’re you feeling?”

Ben’s eying Sammy’s hands, which he’s got curled loosely in his lap. He stretches his fingers, winces as a stab of pain travels from his sore knuckles up his arm. Over the course of the day, the back of his right hand has taken on an unpleasant reddish hue, with a darker spot of purple forming around the base of his little finger. It’s uncomfortable, but not serious enough to warrant much attention.

“I’m fine.” He shrugs. “Don’t think I’ll be doing much intricate needlework in the next couple weeks, but beyond that …”

“You do that a lot? Intricate needlework?”

“All the time, Ben.”

“You know,” Ben says with a terse undertone that makes Sammy look up, “I know that you’re joking, but even if you weren’t, like, how am I really meant to know?”

“What?” Sammy recaps that sentence, shakes his head. “What are you saying?”

Ben sits up. There’s a couple of bright red spots on his cheeks. “I’m saying that I don’t fucking know you, Sammy. I don’t feel like I do. And it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve been trying, hard. But it’s like the only time you ever share anything about yourself, it’s when it’s a choice between that or—I dunno, imploding. Not even then! You’ve been imploding all over the place, and you’re still not really talking to me.”

Sammy holds very still, studies Ben’s face, the agitated glint in his eyes. Ben’s got a point. Of course he does. Ben wouldn’t be saying this if it weren’t more than justified, because Ben is too loyal for his own good. That doesn’t mean that the idea of opening up doesn’t make Sammy feel vaguely nauseous.

“What do you want to know?”

Ben’s eyes widen; his tongue flicks out to wet his lips. He’s probably right to be anxious. Sammy knows himself well enough to be aware that no matter his good intentions, any question Ben chooses next might be one that makes him clam up.

“Where are you from? And I mean—really from. Not L.A.”

This one, he thinks he can do. He looks down at his hands, thinks of the places as points on a map rather than memories. “I was born in upstate New York, near Albany. Never really lived there, though. We were moving all the time. Longest time I spent somewhere before L.A. was Orlando.”

“Is that where you met Jack?”

Ben Arnold, going right for the good stuff. Sammy chews on his lip. “Met Lily first. But yeah. She was making tapes, and then she and I were making tapes. Eventually, Jack came on board. He—you know this. He was my producer.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Sammy uses it to try and grapple with the sense memory of being this other person that he’s telling Ben about, this younger person who used to live a few thousand miles away. Who met Lily, met Jack. Lily was the first to tell him that he had a radio voice, and Jack—

“What was Jack like?”

The question hangs in the air like it’s physical. Sammy curls his hand to a fist, draws out the ache that travels up his arm. “He was just a guy.” Was, not is. Ben used past tense, too. It’s been three long fucking years. “He came on the show—wasn’t a show, then, it was just Lily and me trying to get a slot somewhere. We didn’t—” His voice snags, and he breaks off. Exhales slowly as he uncurls his hand. “Nothing happened for the longest time. It wasn’t—neither of us was particularly, well, comfortable. But he kept—once he figured out that I was potentially open, he wouldn’t let it go. He—” His voice dies on the word. His heart in his throat makes him feel like he’s choking. “I’d’ve never risked it. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. And once he’d convinced me, it was—” He clamps his hands together in his lap. “It was the best goddamn thing I’d ever felt, Ben, it was nothing like anything ever before.”

“Hey.” Ben’s voice is soft, and so is the hand that settles on Sammy’s arm. Gently tugs, and it’s not until Sammy looks down that he realizes that he’s using his good hand to squeeze the bruised knuckles on his bad one. He loosens his grip, shudders a little as the pain lessens.

“I wanted more, after that. I didn’t want to stay where we were, I wanted to go where we could just—where we could just _be_. I was a stupid kid from Orlando, Ben. San Francisco, L.A., it was all the same to me. West Coast, right? Anything goes on the West Coast.”

He can hear the tears in his voice, can feel them burning behind his eyelids, but he’s too skilled at holding them back to let them fall. Ben doesn’t seem to care, puts his arms around Sammy, anyway. Sammy rests his head on Ben’s shoulder and finishes the story. “West Coast’s a big place. L.A.’s not—it’s not the place you wanna go to be out, not when you’re also trying to have a career. But the money was good, so we figured we’d save up—” His voice snags again, but he’s basically done. There’s not much more to this story, which is part of the entire tragedy of it. “We were always waiting for—soon. It was gonna get better soon, just as soon as we got out of whatever place we were in. We were together for six years, but it doesn’t feel like I ever—like I ever really got to be with him.”

There’s nothing he’s got to add after that, so he just lets it taper off, listens to his own breathing. Listens to Ben’s breathing, too, and his suspicion’s confirmed when Ben sucks in a wet sob. It’s the most fucking heartbreaking sound he’s ever heard, so he sits up and wraps his arms around Ben.

They stay like that until they’ve both got their poker faces back on. Not that Ben’s got much of one; he’s still got tears clinging to his lashes when he finally pulls back. Cups a hand against the side of Sammy’s neck without meeting his eyes, just the briefest of touches before his hand slides down and away. For a split-second, Sammy wants to grab Ben’s wrist, stop him and ask him what that was. What that meant.

But he doesn’t. Of all possible times, this would be the worst.

Ben decides they have to eat. They can’t go to either of the restaurant choices in town, so Ben pulls out what he calls his emergency dinner junk food stash—two boxes of Kraft’s Mac & Cheese. Sammy hasn’t had this stuff in what feels like a decade, but it still tastes as bland and inoffensive as he remembers. He watches Ben drown his plate in ketchup and actually manages not to gag.

They sit on the sofa, Ben with his feet up and his legs crossed. Ben’s silent as he shovels Mac & Cheese into his mouth, makes a face like he’s remembering something. Sammy eyes him, curious, and sees his lips twitch.

“What’s funny?”

The tips of Ben’s ears grow red. “Oh, nothing.”

“Come on, Ben.” Sammy reaches out, nudges Ben’s knee. “I thought tonight was a night for sharing.”

“For you!” Ben points his spoon at Sammy. “I share all the time.”

“Well, then. _Share_.”

The blush intensifies, pulls down the sides of Ben’s neck. Ben looks at his plate, lips twitching into a proper smile. “Right. Okay.” He scoops up another spoonful of pasta, doesn’t look up. “You know I’m—well, you know I like girls, right?”

That’s a lot less funny than Sammy was hoping for, but he ignores the way those words make something in his chest twist. “I know you like Emily.”

“I do.” Ben smiles the way he does when he mentions her name, and Sammy chooses to return his attention to his food.

“Anyway,” Ben continues, “you know how it is in small towns. Everyone who’s around the same age probably was in high school together, right?”

“I’ve noticed.”

Ben’s chewing on his lip, grinning to cover up what seems to be a truly torturous state of embarrassment. “So, like. I, um.” He clears his throat. “For a while in high school, I was dating Doyle Bevins.”

Sammy’s muscles freeze up. He’s got his spoon halfway to his mouth, blinks and looks up at Ben. “You were dating Doyle?” Ben’s cheeks get even redder, and Sammy puts the spoon down. “You were dating _Doyle Bevins_ in high school?”

“Well—dating is maybe a strong word.” Ben’s voice takes on that rushed breathlessness he gets when he’s trying to get a story out. “I was a theatre kid, right, and Doyle—well, obviously Doyle was AV Club.”

“Obviously.” Sammy puts his plate aside, gives Ben his undivided attention.

“When we had a show, the techies would set up the—the speaker system, the mixing board, lights, all of that. And someone had to operate them, right, so once we got into proper rehearsal, we’d have a few techies around to manage the, well. The technology.”

“I’m following.”

“Doyle was doing lights a lot, so Doyle would just be up there in the gallery pressing buttons, which—when you’re doing the same scene over and over because the _Alma Mater_ ensemble can’t for the life of them get the timing right, that’s not really much you’re doing, then. And I wasn’t doing much, either, because I wasn’t one of the people fucking up _Alma Mater_.”

“So you thought you’d pay your good friend Doyle a visit. In the gallery.” Despite the introduction, this story is shaping up to be quite entertaining. The look Ben gives him does its part.

“I was really bored, okay? And Doyle—it won’t surprise you when I tell you that Doyle always knew where to get the best weed, even in high school. The gallery had roof access, and if you put a wedge in the door, you could still listen to the show and hear your cues even if you weren’t right there paying attention.”

“So when you said you were dating Doyle, you meant that you and Doyle snuck out onto the roof of your school to get baked. That’s not dating, Ben, that’s just high school.”

“Yes. I mean, yes and no.” Ben finishes his plate, puts it aside and frees his hands up for gesticulating. “You know how, like, it’s _Grease_ , right, so you’ve got kissing?”

“Yes, _Grease_ has kissing, I’m aware.”

“We wanted to do it right. The movie doesn’t have a kiss at the end, right, but we—I—anyway, everyone thought that was really dumb. It’s a romance! So I convinced Mr. Sheffield to let us put a kiss in, as, like. The big finale. Except, well—”

“You’d never kissed anyone before?”

“What? No!” Ben frowns. “I mean, yes. I’d kissed people—girls—but not in the way you do on stage at the end of a show. I’d never kissed anyone theatrically.”

“Ri-ight.” Sammy’s not sure whether to feel amused, appalled, or both. “Let me guess, Doyle was only too happy to help you practice.”

“Yes.” Ben’s face is approaching a similar shade of red as his sofa pillows. “He was—I gotta say, he wasn’t bad at it. Kissing in high school, it’s always like, am I allowed to, I dunno, even put my hands anywhere, right? Doyle didn’t—he didn’t really give a fuck.”

Sammy watches Ben, the red spots on his cheeks, the hectic glint in his eyes. He can’t say he knows what it’s like to kiss people in high school, at least not people you genuinely want to kiss. By the time he’d worked up the courage to kiss someone he was attracted to, he’d been well past high school age. But of course Ben’s ahead of him even in that regard, despite the fact that Ben’s straight.

Well. Presumably straight.

“Anyway, we—it kinda became a thing.” Ben shrugs. “The _Alma Mater_ ensemble really needed a lot of work. So I’d sneak up, and we’d go out on the roof and smoke and—well, make out. It wasn’t the worst dating experience I’ve ever had, I gotta say.”

Ben’s a shit liar, and a shit hider of emotions. There’s something in his eyes that’s making Sammy curious. “How’d it end?”

Ben waves a hand. “Oh, I don’t even—it wasn’t a thing. We just—” He frowns, expression belying his words. “I eventually suggested hanging outside of school, and, you know, not getting high. Weed just makes you dumb, right, and I wanted to try having a real conversation. Doyle thought I was trying to—I don’t even know. He had this thing, probably still does. All “doors of perception”, “you’re only your real self when you’re on drugs”. The way he reacted, you’d’ve thought I’d suggested joining a monastery.”

It’s just an anecdote, a funny story from Ben’s high school years. And it _is_ funny; the thought of teenage Ben and Doyle opening the doors of their dating perception to allow in gay kissing, it brings a smile to Sammy’s face.

But he can’t help but wonder about the timing of it.

“So.” He clears his throat, sits up. He has no idea if this is the right question to ask right now. It probably isn’t. “You ever date anyone else not-female after that?”

Ben stares at him. He’s not smiling anymore, nor shifting his eyes in evasion. “No.” Shakes his head. “Just—Doyle—and—we should put these plates away.”

He jumps to his feet, grabs the plates and almost drops one of them. Sammy lunges to catch, but Ben’s already done it and is on his way into the kitchen.

Sammy swears under his breath. “Ben.” He gets up, follows. “ _Ben_.”

“No.” Ben’s at the counter, scraping Mac & Cheese remains into the trash. “This isn’t what we’re doing tonight, Sammy. This isn’t how this goes, I’m not—”

“Ben!”

Ben jumps. The plate ends up on the floor. It doesn’t break, but even if it had, chances are neither of them would have paid it much attention.

Ben stands with his back to the counter, hands gripping it like a lifeline. Sammy opens his mouth, closes it again. “Ben,” he says eventually. Tries for calming. “Please—you gotta tell me what’s going on. I’m not—all of this is fucking confusing enough, right? So—I realize I’m the last person who has a right to say this, but I don’t think that leaving things unspoken is gonna get us anywhere.”

Ben laughs, a dry, humorless sound. Looks off to the side. “You’re right. You really are the last person who has a right to say that.” When he meets Sammy’s eyes again, the resentment is gone, though. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for weeks. Months, maybe—I don’t even _know_. I don’t know how this works, I don’t know what this is, and you’re not—this is, like, the worst thing ever, I’m taking advantage of you when you—when you’re not—”

Ben’s wringing his hands, trying to get the words out. Sammy can’t watch this. He makes the worst decisions when he goes with his gut, but looks like he’s not going to learn. He takes a step forward, takes Ben’s wrists in his hands— _gently_ —and leans in to press a kiss to Ben’s lips.

Ben grows still like a flip’s been switched. His lips are soft, twitch in response against Sammy’s. Something warm unfurls in Sammy’s stomach, bleeds out from his center to engulf his whole body. The moment lasts longer than intended; it was just meant to be a brief kiss, just a point Sammy was making about things he’s not entirely clear on. But Ben’s not pulling back, and Sammy doesn’t want to, either. So it’s only when the tip of Ben’s tongue nudges his lip that Sammy fully realizes what’s happening.

“Shit.” It’s a breathless gasp. He stumbles back, lets go of Ben’s wrists. “Shit, Ben, I—”

“Sammy.” Ben’s voice is full of concern. Sammy’s chest tightens; it’s hard to draw in air. “Sammy, breathe with me.”

He does, watches Ben’s nostrils flare as they draw a breath in and out, in and out, steady and regular until the clenching in Sammy’s chest subsides. Ben’s searching his face, and he looks so goddamn guilty. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sammy takes a deep breath, wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “I’m not—I’m sorry, Ben, I’m— _God_.” He squeezes his eyes shut, presses his fists against his forehead. He pretty sure he’s about to have a stroke. “This is bad—this is _bad_ fucking timing.”

“Tell me about it.” Ben’s voice is far away, but then there’s a hand on Sammy’s arm, and that feels real enough. “Hey.”

Sammy lowers his hands, looks at Ben. This guy that he met three years ago, in whose company he’s spent most of his time in King Falls. This guy who is not Jack Wright.

“Fuck you, man.” His voice is thin and shaky, catches in his throat. “Fuck you, man, you said you were _straight_.”

Ben opens his mouth, closes it. Squints. “To be fair, Sammy, I never technically—really— _said_ that. In all actuality. I’m pretty positive I didn’t.”

Sammy groans and buries his face in his hands.

\------

The inside of Ben’s head doesn’t tend to be particularly quiet.

There are usually at least three separate trains of thought going on, more often than not at a mile a minute on tracks that loop back in on themselves in intricate spirals and curves. At best it’s exhilarating, at worst it makes Ben feel like the 21st century would be a great time to bring back lobotomy as a medical treatment.

Right now, the ever-shifting Ben Arnold brain network is still going, but for once Ben’s managing to not pay it much attention. He’s not even trying to chill out on purpose; it’s more like someone pressed a mute button on his frontal lobe. All he’s left with are a bunch of hyper-clear sensory impressions—smooth sheets on his skin, the mattress springs in his back. The sound of Sammy breathing next to him; deep, slow breaths. Asleep, fucking finally. Only took most of the night for that to happen.

After the kiss, they agreed to be sensible, to be adults and go to bed like normal, each in their room with the doors closed and a hallway separating them. It was barely two hours later when Sammy knocked, came in looking twice his age and scared out of his wits. He said something about a dream, a nightmare that involved darkness and an inability to tell what’s real. It sounded like hell, so Ben made an executive decision to fuck being adults and told Sammy to stay.

Now it’s so late it’s early again, the first hints of light creeping through the blinds. Ben hasn’t slept a wink, and he’s not expecting to anymore. He’s not even tired anymore, not really. His brain’s working on something; the parts of his mind that he’s ignoring in these quiet hours of the morning are formulating a plan that’ll bypass this strange state of calm and put him into action.

While he waits for that, he pulls out memory files from the last three years. Memories of being in the studio, running the show with Sammy. He tries to remember what he felt when Sammy first showed up. It’s hard; when you see someone every day, your early memories of them become less clear. But he remembers seeing that manbun, seeing the casual jacket with the elbow patches that Sammy decided to wear, and wondering how long Mr. Big City was going to take to realize that things work differently here in the Falls.

Truth be told, he didn’t think Sammy was going to stay. Truth be told, even now, with Sammy asleep next to him, Ben doesn’t know how to believe that Sammy won’t soon decide that the things Ben has to offer are just not measuring up. All Ben’s got is this town, it’s Rose’s Diner and the Bass Tournament. King Falls AM and the fucking Best Small Town in America celebration. Sammy’s made it more than clear that those aren’t enough to stick around for.

And yet he’s here. Ben shifts, rolls onto his side and watches the dark mound of blankets on the other side of his bed. The morning sunlight is starting to illuminate Sammy’s face, lifting his features from darkness like one of those white-pencil-on-black drawings. Sammy’s here. Maybe that’s because he’s got nowhere else to go, or maybe— _maybe_. Maybe it’s that for the first time in his life, Ben’s gut isn’t telling him what’s really going on.

He turns his face into his pillow, allows the fabric to stifle a sigh. He has no idea what time it is. The sun is up, though, which in this small mountain town means that the day’s officially begun. No more stalling, Ben Arnold. You’ve got a conversation to have.

He doesn’t wake Sammy, sneaks out quietly and leaves a note on the kitchen table. _Got some errands to run_ , it says. _BRB, and leave me some eggs_. The Saturn’s old engine makes a godawful noise spluttering to life in the parking lot. Ben ducks his head, half-expects his phone to ring, but it remains silent.

Better this way. He pulls out into the street and ignores the looming feeling of dread as he navigates his car down the familiar route to the King Falls library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Ben mentions smoking weed in high school in this chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Upon leaving Los Angeles, Sammy bought a new phone.

He kept his contract, kept his phone number, because of course he did. But he bought a new device, and he refused to transfer anything beyond the most important contacts, which he typed manually into the pristine new contacts app.

He put his old phone into a box in the bottom of his suitcase, where it remained. He didn’t take it with him when he left King Falls to find the Devil’s Doorstep—left it in the apartment, along with everything else that had ever meant anything to him. Thank God his former landlord was willing to let him get his stuff afterwards. The phone in its box migrated into a drawer in Ben’s spare closet, where it’s been sitting since.

Ben’s not around when Sammy wakes up. It’s not entirely surprising—the more anxious Ben gets, the more he needs to move. If his own state of mind is anything to judge by, Sammy would assume Ben’s plenty anxious after last night. Sammy figures he’d probably benefit from a bit of fresh air himself, but instead of going for a walk (or a run, even; he used to do that now and again), he goes and digs out his old phone.

It needs charging, and once it’s charged, it takes a while to power up. Eventually, though, his old lock screen flickers into focus. He keeps his private life private, never understood people who’d put their partner on their phone wallpaper for everyone to see. Jack’s not on the screen, but Jack’s everywhere else on the device—Twitter, iMessage, Instagram.

It’s like a snapshot of his life three years ago. The time since feels like a blur, a time of waiting and fretting and hoping in vain. It doesn’t feel like it left space for anything much. But the person this phone belonged to feels foreign all the same—younger, more clueless, much less kind. He remembers telling Ben that he’s somebody new, but he didn’t realize the extent of it.

He heads downstairs, grabs some coffee. Finds a note from Ben. Eventually, he settles on the sofa and scrolls through his and Jack Wright’s message history.

The most recent ones are unanswered pleas he sent for Jack to come home. He doesn’t read them, scrolls past to before the day Jack disappeared. This part seems to consist largely of mundane jewels such as “can you pick up milk on your way home” and “I’m running a few minutes late”.

A couple of screens up, there’s a message that makes him pause. He’d forgotten sending it, but it’s coming back to him now—a message typed after a phone call with Jack. A fight with Jack. Jack had ditched yet another show and Sammy, after stumbling through an awkward solo performance, had called him up to give him a piece of his mind. He flinches away from the memory. It’s painful to recall Jack’s indifference, his impatience for Sammy to get off the phone in case the “King Falls lady” called.

_Fuck you, and fuck her, too_ , the message reads. _Why don’t you go marry her instead of me? Make a couple of ghost kids and be a real family._

He’d still been mad when he got home, had gone to bed without speaking to Jack. Jack had joined him eventually, back from playing ghost telephone and present, for once. He’d wormed his way back into Sammy’s good graces the way only Jack could—spooning up against him, kissing the back of his neck, saying sorry. An apology from Jack Wright felt a lot like getting wrapped in a cocoon of love and affection. There was never really anything to do about it other than forgive him.

Jack told him he loved him that night. It’s the last time Sammy can remember him saying it. _I love you, I don’t want to be with anyone else_. Three weeks later, Jack packed a bag, got into his car, and vanished.

Sammy puts the phone aside. There’s a knot in his gut making him feel vaguely nauseous. It’s not grief. Grief he knows; he’s lived with it the past three years. This is grief’s occasional buddy anger. He’s felt it before, but he doesn’t like it. Being angry at Jack always seems selfish and incredibly unfair.

Now he’s thinking that just maybe it’s not all that unfair. They’d made a life, they’d promised each other forever. But even if Jack hadn’t disappeared, he would’ve still been gone. The packed bag confirms that he was planning to leave without a word. Maybe Sammy’s got a right to be a little bit angry at him.

He gets up, takes his mug to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Almost drops it when on his way back, the door flies open to admit Ben.

“Jesus!”

“Sammy. Hi.”

Ben looks like he didn’t sleep a whole lot. He never looks like he sleeps a whole lot, but today the dark circles under his eyes and the way his hair’s standing up are especially pronounced. He drops his car keys on the sideboard, pushes past Sammy into the kitchen. “Is there coffee?”

“Yeah, I made some.” Sammy leans against the side of the stairs as he watches Ben, who seems to be carrying as much tension as a hummingbird trying to escape a cat. Sammy can’t be sure, but he thinks he can see his hand shake as he pulls a mug from the cupboard.

He frowns, concerned. “You’ve been out?”

“Yeah. Yes. I’ve been out.” Ben’s staring at the open cupboard, frowning. “You think there’s too many dishes in this, Sammy?”

Okay. Just play along. He pushes off the wall, comes over to take a look. “I think there’s as many dishes as there should be, considering you don’t really have space for them anywhere else.”

“Yes, but—” Ben points at the middle shelf that’s curving a little under the weight of the stacked plates. “Look at that. This thing is mounted to the wall, and trust me, it’s probably just screwed in with a couple of screws here and there. Burt’s not a conscientious landlord, he’d rather save on screws than make sure his tenants are safe. Imagine you’re cleaning out the dishwasher and putting a plate away and suddenly—boom! You’ve got a cupboard full of pointy bits coming at you.”

“I don’t think—”

Ben’s already reaching up to pull out plates. “I’ll just have to throw them out,” he says. “Throw them out, maybe get plastic ones. Plastic’s bad for the environment, though. Paper?” He looks over at Sammy. “How do paper plates work, Sammy, are they woke or broke?”

“Ben.” He puts his mug down, puts a hand on Ben’s arm. “Stop. You don’t have to get new plates.”

“But what if they come down?” Ben’s still trying to reach, but relents when Sammy tightens his hold on his arm. “This thing isn’t safe, Sammy, it’s _bending_ , and if it comes down, it’ll probably be when you’re, like, putting things away and it might hit you in the head and you might die.”

Ben’s eyes are wide and bright, his voice cracking. The concern in Sammy’s gut triples. He steps closer, puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I’m not gonna die. What’s going on, dude?” 

“Nothing.” Ben shakes his head, but he doesn’t move away. If anything, he shuffles a little closer so that his shoulder’s pressing firmly against Sammy’s chest. “Nothing, just a cupboard in my kitchen that’s a death trap that I never even noticed.”

Ben’s more or less asking for a hug without using words, so Sammy puts his arms around him, rubs his back in what he hopes to be a soothing motion. “Did you see something weird?” he asks. That might be it, right? Maybe Ben saw a ghost or a zombie while he was out—

But Ben’s shaking his head. He turns his face into Sammy’s chest, slides his arms around Sammy’s waist. Being close like this, Sammy can feel Ben’s body tremble, an arrhythmic twitching that makes Sammy’s anxiety spike in sympathy.

Eventually, Ben speaks. “I went to see Emily.”

He’s almost too quiet to hear. Sammy bites his lip, tightens his arms around Ben and tries to ignore the feeling of dread forming in his stomach. “Are you guys okay?”

Ben shakes his head, and his shoulders hitch in what’s probably building up to be a sob. Sammy blinks, looks up at the ceiling as he tries to ignore the sudden burning behind his eyelids.

“I didn’t mean—” Ben sounds muffled and shaky, and he starts over. “I didn’t go there to break up. I didn’t want to break up.” His voice thins out on the last few words. Sammy can feel Ben’s fingers dig into the back of his shirt. “I just—I had to tell her, right? I can’t—not tell her about something like this.”

“Something like what?”

Ben pulls back, squints up at him. There are already a few patches of red on his cheeks, even though Sammy has a feeling that the proper waterworks haven’t even started yet.

“ _Us_ , Sammy.” Ben sounds indignant, impatient. “I had to tell her about us.”

It feels like the floor’s dropping out from underneath his feet. He bites the inside of his lip, tries to ride out the wave of nausea. Tries to focus on the spark of anger in the back of his mind. “There is no us, Ben. That’s not—that’s not what that meant, you can’t just assume—”

“You kissed me, Sammy!” Ben sounds angry enough himself, although it doesn’t seem to stop the tears rising into his eyes. “You kissed me. And yeah, I know it freaked you out, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!”

“It’s—”

“And it doesn’t mean that it didn’t mean anything, either.” Ben’s volume comes back down, but the shakiness in his voice remains. “I don’t claim to know what it means, exactly, but I can’t keep dating Emily and—pretend—” His voice cuts off. There’s nothing that Sammy wouldn’t give to not be the person causing the pain in Ben’s eyes.

The tears start to fall, finally, when Ben continues. “I just wanted to come clean, but—she said she’s—she said she’s done—she just said she’s done. She said there’s no real difference at all between me and Frickard, and I know—I know—God, no, I _don’t_ fucking know, Sammy. Is there?”

Sammy can’t help his mind conjuring up the scene Ben’s describing. Ben, honest to his own detriment, and Emily, who’s been hurt times enough to use her claws at the threat of another injury. He draws in a shaky breath, shakes his head. “You’re not Frickard, Ben. She’s just—she’s hurt. She loves you.”

That’s what does it. Ben’s face crumples, his breath hitches. His hands come up, spread helplessly. “She never wants to see me again. She said—to get the fuck out of her life and—and m—make—”

Ben stalls out, too distraught to speak, and Sammy finally steps back in. Wraps his arms around Ben, who presses his face into Sammy’s chest, shoulders shaking.

Sammy just holds him, listens to Ben sobbing in his arms and stares blindly at the overladen plate cupboard. Thinks of Emily’s anger, thinks of his own he felt earlier after reading the messages on his phone.

Loving people is a fucking mess. Anyone who’s smart probably stays away from it entirely.

\------

Ben can’t remember the last time he cried like this. College, probably, having to leave King Falls and be somewhere far away from everything he knew and loved. He never told anyone about the savage crying spells that happened every time he arrived back in his dorm, just made sure he’d come back from break before his roommate and get them over with while he had some privacy.

In that sense, this is better. He’s not curled up in an uncomfortable college room bed hugging a lumpy pillow. He’s in his own home, on his own couch, with his own best friend who’s stroking his hair and letting him cry in his lap.

In every other sense, this is worse. Ben tries to be a positive guy and focus on the things he can change rather than all the things that are out of his control. Right now, though, he’s pretty sure he’s drowning. There’s nothing you can do when you’re trying to suck in air but getting a lungful of water. You’re just fucked.

Emily’s words keep echoing in his head, going around and around until they lose all meaning. She’s done waiting, she’s done being patient. She’s done being conquered and she’s done being mindful. She’s done, she gave you so many chances but now she’s done.

The worst thing is, he’s not sure he even knows what he wanted from her. At some point, he and Emily had become a foregone conclusion in his mind, a checklist that went something like one of Cynthia’s: dating, check, marriage, check, children, che-eck. It made sense to him, and it made sense to everyone who kept asking when they would finally make it official. Apparently it didn’t make sense to Emily. She asked him what he wanted, to say what he really wanted without falling back on stereotypes, and he couldn’t.

The stereotype would have been fine. It would have been safe. Defining your own thing sounds exhausting and terrifying, and he can’t do it when he thinks about Emily. Their future home always looks like the Jensen’s in his mind, their future children he can’t even picture. She asked him if he would want a boy or a girl, if he’d thought about names at all. He had no answers. Then she asked him if he’d thought about anything regarding those children they were so clearly planning to have, and the only thing he could say with certainty was that he’d want Sammy to be an adoptive uncle.

That’s when she told him to get out of her life. The memory hurts, makes his already sore throat clench around another sob. He turns his face into Sammy’s jeans, curls his fingers into his shirt. This sucks _so much_.

About an hour or so later, the tears have finally stopped. He’s sitting up now, feels like a wrung-out cleaning rag. Sammy’s made tea, and Ben cradles the mug in his blanketed lap, tries to get his mind to engage with anything concrete. He’s not having much luck.

Sammy’s tangling with the TV cables, trying to get the laptop set up. Ben’s been watching him for a while, but he doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Squints accusingly at the ports at the side of the laptop as he once again fails to shove the cable in. He’s starting to make that flustered “technology hates me” Sammy Stevens face.

“You want the HDMI, not the USB,” Ben says. He’s aware that’s probably less than helpful, but thinking of a less technical way to say it seems like an impossible task right now. He waves a vague hand. “The one with the flat top, not the rectangle.”

Sammy throws him a glance. “Rectangles have a flat top, Ben.” But he seems prompted to take a closer look, which pays off a moment later when he goes, “Ooh, I see,” and finally plugs the cable into the right port. The TV flickers to life to show Ben’s desktop.

“Thank God it’s still on the right source, huh?” Sammy throws him a confused look, and Ben shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Right.” Sammy pulls up their recents on Netflix. “Buffy, then?”

“Sure.” He doesn’t think he’s going to be paying much attention, anyway. Sammy starts the next episode and comes over. Ben makes sure he sits close enough so Ben can lean against him. Sammy’s tolerant enough, puts an arm around him and settles down.

For a skinny beanstalk, Sammy’s quite comfortable. He smells good, too, and he’s warm. In the privacy of his own mind, Ben will even admit that Sammy’s quite a bit taller than he is, and that he doesn’t mind at all. It means Ben can curl up against his side and, with a little help from the comforter, hide under his arm.

Wouldn’t work with Emily. She’s too small for it.

The thought makes Ben’s chest wrench. He gropes for the remote and turns down the sound to a quiet whisper.

“Uh,” says Sammy. “I can’t really hear it like tha—”

“Can I ask you something?”

A moment’s quiet. Ben can’t see Sammy’s face, but he can imagine the look on it—careful neutrality while Sammy’s mind runs through all possible questions he might be about to face. “Sure,” he says eventually. “Anytime.”

Ben swallows, plucks up his courage. “How does the gay thing work?”

“The—how does the gay thing work? What’s the gay thing, Ben?”

Sometimes, Ben wishes telepathy were a thing. Words can be really hard, especially for shit like this. “I mean—how do you know? Really, for sure, that you like someone like that, and not just—like them. How do you make it work in your head when the people you like—when it doesn’t make sense?”

There’s another stretch of silence, the only sound low snatches of dialog from the TV. Ben’s ear is pressed against Sammy’s chest, and he can hear Sammy’s heartbeat—steady, regular. It’s kind of soothing.

“I’m not sure I ever had that,” says Sammy eventually. His arm shifts, and then there are fingers in Ben’s hair, stroking softly. “That it didn’t make sense. I knew pretty early on that—well. What I was interested in. _Who_ I was interested in. Wasn’t easy, but—it wasn’t unclear.”

Ben’s eyes start to itch again. He doesn’t want to have to figure this out on his own, he doesn’t want to be the only person who’s ever felt so damn _confused_ —

“It was different for Jack, I think.” Sammy’s still talking. Ben holds still, waits for more. “We never talked about it much, but—Jack didn’t start dating men till he was in his mid-twenties, and he’d had a couple—he’d had girlfriends. He never—I don’t know if he ever felt like it didn’t make sense. We never discussed it.”

Sammy sounds sad now, so Ben sneaks a hand behind his back, wraps his arms around Sammy’s waist. It helps a little with feeling confused. Ben’s always been a physical sort of guy, but he kind of doubts that best platonic friends get in as much touching and hugging as he and Sammy have been doing the past few weeks. It’s a scary thought, but it’s also a good one. It creates some clarity.

“That’s probably what the scale thing is about, right?” He read about that in high school. At the time, it blew his mind, the idea that those neat two categories, gay and straight, only covered two dots in a whole statistical distribution. It’s starting to make a little bit more sense now. “I’m not at either of the ends. I’m somewhere in the middle.”

“Might be.” Sammy’s still stroking his hair, sounds quiet and a little cautious. “Do you think that’s the case?”

Ben takes a while to ponder that. Thinks about Emily, though he can’t do that for too long, so he moves on to others—college girlfriends, high school crushes. Doyle Bevins, who might’ve been his first proper boyfriend if he hadn’t preferred the weed. Celebrity crushes, and yeah. Damn. This explains so much about his brief but intense obsession in the early noughties with Idris Elba and the Baltimore drug scene.

He hugs Sammy more tightly. “I think so, yeah. I think I’m somewhere in the middle.”

“All right.” Sammy sounds almost somber. A hand settles in the nape of Ben’s neck. “Thanks for telling me. And congrats on your internal coming out.”

That’s a scary thought. But there doesn’t seem to be any necessity to dwell on it, so Ben just nods, fishes between the blankets for the remote and turns the TV sound back up.


	6. Chapter 6

Five days later, Sammy’s woken up by a phone that’s not his.

It’s not that strange, considering he’s also sleeping in a room that’s not his. For the first couple of nights after the Emily fiasco, sleeping in Ben’s room was just a matter of making sure Ben actually settled down and slept. Once Ben got past the stage of randomly bursting into tears every four hours, though, Sammy could’ve moved back into his own room.

He didn’t. There didn’t seem to be any pressing reason to do so. Ben fits perfectly into the crook of his arm at night, and Sammy’s decided that there’s enough stupid emotional shit going on not to add fretting over that to the list. There’s time enough to freak out about the implications later.

So that’s how on this late spring morning, he startles awake when Ben’s phone decides to make a hellish racket ringing and buzzing on the nightstand. He doesn’t even get a chance to say anything before Ben sits up, shouts a startled “What?”, and grabs the phone to quell the noise.

“Yes? Hello? Ben. Ben Arnold’s phone.”

Sammy lets himself fall back into the pillows with a groan, one hand over his eyes as he listens to the quiet drone that’s coming from the phone’s little speaker. It’s too quiet for him to make much out, but it’s a man’s voice. Not Ben’s mom, then.

“A job.” Ben sounds taken aback, so Sammy removes his hand and squints up at him. Ben looks scandalized the way he does when something goes against his set view of the world. “But the station—”

The guy on the other end interrupts Ben, talks for a while. Ben looks like he wants to speak a couple of times, his eyebrows pulling together. Eventually, his eyes first widen and then narrow in a squint. “All right, Merv. Loud and clear. Just email me the deets.”

He hangs up and glowers at the phone in a way nobody should glower at their phone unless they just finished a call with an overbearing parent. Sammy rolls over onto his stomach. “That was Merv? Why is Merv calling you at—” He glances past Ben at the clock on the nightstand. “—seven a.m.? Why is Merv calling you at all? I thought he only emailed.”

“It’s a first.” Ben puts the phone aside. He sounds tense. “He wants me to work a show at a station he owns in Two Summits. Apparently the hosts both had to go to rehab. At the same time.”

Sammy blinks. “I wanna make a Toxic Twins joke, but it’s too damn early. Where’s Two Summits? Crystal County?”

“Hah hah.” Ben gives him a sour look. “It’s about four hours east down the Interstate.”

“That’s in _Idaho_. Is it Idaho? Whichever vast and unpopulated state lies east of us.”

“Idaho, yes, Mr. Map. Apparently Merv’s business interests cross state lines, who knew.”

Sammy groans again and buries his face in the pillow. “The last place I wanna go is Idaho.” His voice is muffled, but he’s sure Ben catches the gist. “Oregon’s got Portland, at least. Idaho’s just no man’s land.”

“Well, you’re not going. Merv’s sending me, because he still employs me but currently has nowhere to put me to work. You, he didn’t mention. Probably because he thinks you’re already back in California.”

Right. Merv _would_ think that. Sammy takes a moment to process before he turns back around. Ben’s watching him. He’s got a glint in his eyes that Sammy doesn’t like.

“You wanna sign that contract now? I have at least four copies still in my—”

“God, no.” It’s not really meant as an answer to Ben’s question. It’s just that this is the last thing Sammy wants to think about right now. He covers his face with his hands, squeezes his eyes shut. “There might not even be a Sammy and Ben Show anymore. Who knows what Merv’s gonna do with the station once he’s rebuilt it—if he rebuilds it.”

“You have to know that’s complete horseshit.” Ben sounds indignant as well as a little hurt. Sammy winces. “You’ve seen the construction site. You know he’s rebuilding. And the Sammy and Ben Show is literally the most successful broadcast from that studio. It’s probably the reason he’s making a profit at all.”

Sammy doesn’t know what to say, keeps his hands over his eyes and wishes he could disappear into the mattress. He doesn’t even know why this makes him feel the way it does, but there’s nausea rising in his throat. The best course of action seems to be to go back to sleep and not wake up until there’s no risk of this conversation continuing.

Ben takes his wrist and makes him jump.

“Sammy.” The hand on his wrist tugs. “Sammy, talk to me.”

He takes his hands off of his face, pulls his arm out of Ben’s grip. He doesn’t want to be touched right now. Cracks his knuckles as his hands end up twisting together with nothing to do. “I don’t really have anything to say. I don’t—” — _want to sign the contract_. He doesn’t think that’s true, though. The idea of never going back into the studio with Ben makes him feel like he did the night he went into Perdition Wood. The idea of signing Merv’s contract, though, makes him feel like the proverbial deer in the headlights of an especially large and nasty eighteen-wheeler.

“I want some coffee.” He sits up, gets out of bed before Ben can stop him. Ignores Ben calling his name. What takes more effort to ignore is the note of exasperation in Ben’s tone, but he manages that, too.

By the time Ben catches up, Sammy’s downstairs spooning coffee into the filter machine.

“Sammy, for fuck’s sake. Tell me what’s going on.” Ben takes his elbow, and even though Sammy knew it was coming, he still jumps and spills coffee grounds all over the counter.

“Jesus!” Sammy puts the coffee down, takes a deep breath. “Back off, all right?”

“No.” Despite his words, Ben doesn’t try to touch him again. He sounds upset, and Sammy can’t claim that doesn’t make him feel guilty as hell. “I don’t get what’s going on, Sammy. You sounded one hell of a lot like you’d forgotten that you ditched our show. Did you really just forget that?”

Sammy finishes prepping the coffee maker, scoops the spilled grounds off the counter into his hand and dumps them into the sink. By the time he’s done, he’s got himself together enough to turn around.

“I’d put it out of my mind. I think.” Ben’s standing there barefoot in his t-shirt and PJ pants looking even tinier than normal. “I didn’t wanna sign because—” He swallows. “Because I couldn’t keep pretending. Or, you know. Lying. I’d give anything to be able to go back and do the show without lying, but—I can’t go back with all of this hanging over me, Ben. Not when they all heard everything.”

Ben’s eyes narrow. “So you don’t wanna lie to people, but you also don’t want them to know anything, ‘cos—what, Sammy? What’re you afraid will happen?”

“It _happened_ , Ben. You heard Gunderson, his fucking snide remarks about ‘my kind’—”

“That’s Gunderson!” Ben throws up his hands. “He is literally the worst human being, in this town if not this galaxy. Not everyone in King Falls is a dick like him. Barely anyone—”

“I don’t want people to be nice about it, either!” As backwards as it sounds, it’s the truth. Sammy crosses his arms, digs his fingers into his sides. “I have no interest in becoming King Falls’ token gay. I’m not gonna—represent, or—anything. You don’t know this yet, Ben, but people knowing is always a bad thing. It makes you the odd one out, the limping fucking impala in the herd. Ask David Attenborough what happens to those.”

“Okay.” Ben’s calmer now, like he’s talking to a startled cat. It makes Sammy want to bare his teeth and snap at him, but instead he just watches Ben take a step closer. “King Falls is not a herd of impalas, Sammy, and you’re not gonna get eaten by a tiger. That’s not—”

“Tigers live in Asia, Ben. They don’t even share a habitat with—”

“Sammy!”

Sammy swallows the rest of his sentence. Ben’s right in front of him now, grasps his upper arms. “Dude.” Ben’s eyes search Sammy’s face. “ _Relax_ , okay? We’re not even talking about King Falls. This is Two Summits, Idaho. They’ve probably never even heard of you.”

True enough. Not even Shotgun Sammy made it all the way up to Idaho. Sammy wonders if anything ever does. “If I sign a contract, it’s not just Two Summits. It’ll be a year. Why not more? Clearly if I’m staying now, I’m not—” His voice gets caught in his throat. He wets his lips. “I’ve never done this, Ben.”

The truth of that sits heavy in his stomach. No matter how nonchalant an air he put on after learning that he broadcast his entire sordid life story to the town of King Falls, he’s never lived like this. He’s never put everything out in the open for people to pass judgment on. “I don’t think I can do it. I’m fucking terrified.”

“But—you did it. You’ve done it.” Ben’s eyebrows come together, confused. “You were in the studio after everything, you even thanked Lily—”

“Yeah, remember how I said I’m a liar? That was me lying.”

Ben’s lips thin out. He lets go of Sammy’s arms, curls his hands to fists like he’s trying to physically hold on to his temper. “You didn’t care. You didn’t care, because you already knew what you were gonna do. For fuck’s sake, Sammy!” He lands a shove against Sammy’s shoulder, makes him stumble back. “You said it wasn’t planned!”

“It wasn’t!” Sammy catches himself, holds up his hands. “I swear, Ben, it wasn’t—” Planned. Not in so much detail. But Ben’s implications aren’t that far off. It’s much easier not to give a shit when you have no stake in your continued existence.

“I’m sorry.” His stomach twists as he meets Ben’s eyes, sees the pain in them. He never meant to put it there. It wasn’t planned, but maybe if he’d paid a little more attention to himself, it wouldn’t have happened. He reaches out to take Ben’s wrist. “Hey.”

Ben resists at first, but not for long. He moves in for a hug, wraps two angry arms tightly around Sammy’s waist, shoves his face into Sammy’s chest. His chest expands as he sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t get it, and—I’m sorry it’s all over town like this. But we can’t take it back.” He shifts, tilts his head back. “And you can’t let this—I dunno, rob you of what you’ve got here. You want to stay, right?”

Sammy holds Ben’s eyes, feels Ben’s body fit neatly against his own. Imagines leaving to be somewhere else, to find a new town, new people. To them he’d be Sammy Stevens, radio personality, and not much more unless he told them the things he took three years to tell Ben.

Three lonely, miserable years he has no interest in reliving.

“Yeah.” He gives a tiny nod. “I do.”

Ben’s face splits into a grin. “Great. I’ll get that contract, then.”

\------

He ends up calling Merv before he signs, because they have his phone number now, and because he’s not sure the contract offer still stands, what with the station being a pile of ash. They hash something out where Sammy commits to working Two Summits with Ben (it’s only two nights until the proper substitutes start), and agrees to re-join the Sammy and Ben Show at the King Falls studio as soon as it’s usable again. Merv tries to get a carte blanche to send Sammy to any station across the country to substitute as needed, but Sammy manages to turn him down. He also ends up with a newly earned respect for their elusive boss.

“Apparently he owns a station in what sounds like every small town in America,” he says to Ben after he hangs up. “Who knew?”

The new contract arrives the next day just as he and Ben are getting ready to leave for Two Summits. Ben all but drops what he’s doing, signs for the package, and dumps it on the kitchen table. Stands next to it with a pen in his hand and glares as Sammy makes his way over.

“I’m gonna sign,” Sammy reassures him. Maybe reassures himself a little.

“You’d better.” Ben holds out the pen. “Here.”

Sammy takes it, sits down, and fishes the contract out of the FedEx bag. It’s not the scariest contract he’s signed. The L.A. one was three times as thick, with several pages on non-disclosure commitments and legal liability of the respective parties. He remembers caring so little that he didn’t even read it. He’s not sure he cares much now, but he still puts the two copies next to each other, flips through them page-by-page to make sure they’re identical.

“The part where you sign is usually at the end.”

“Thank you, Ben.” He realizes that he’s clicking the ballpoint pen. Forces himself to stop. “Would you mind not doing that?” He waves a hand over his shoulder. “You’re hovering.”

“Yes, I am.” Ben shifts. Sammy’s pretty sure he’s bouncing on his toes. “And yes, I’d mind. Just sign the damn thing, Sammy.”

“Jesus.”

The two copies seem in order, same number of pages with the same content. Money’s the same in each, and as agreed, vacation and sick days are as expected. Everything’s exactly the way he discussed it with Merv.

He flips to the page with the signature lines, ignores the way his stomach tries to crawl up his throat. Also ignores Ben, who’s holding his breath next to him.

Merv’s scrawl is already on the page, tiny letters that leave his last name illegible. Sammy clicks the pen one more time. The tip scratches over the paper as he writes, his signature flowing in its familiar ups and downs. Samuel Stevens, committing to upholding the agreements summarized in this document. He signs the second copy, too, adds a little flourish to the final ‘s’ of his name that hopefully doesn’t void anything. He’ll just make this the copy he keeps, then.

“Hell _yeah_!”

The shout makes him startle, but luckily, he’s already removed pen from paper. Ben’s uttering triumphant noises as he jumps and punches the air. Sammy starts to get up, barely makes it to his feet before Ben tackles him.

“Whoa!” He can’t help it, starts laughing as he tries to keep his balance. Wraps his arms around Ben. “Ben, you—”

He doesn’t get any further. Ben grabs the sides of his face and interrupts him by pressing their lips together.

It’s as exuberant as it’s awkward due to the height difference. There’s an explosion of heat in Sammy’s stomach. He tightens his arms around Ben, doesn’t mean it as an invitation, but Ben takes it as one. He jumps up into Sammy’s arms and wraps his legs around his hips.

“Shit!” No matter how short, Ben’s a fully grown man, and the weight of him makes Sammy stumble. Ben laughs, startled, throws his arms around Sammy’s neck and holds on for dear life. “Ben, you’re—”

They flail their way over to the wall. Once Ben’s got his back against it, the situation gets less precarious. Sammy gives a breathless laugh, centers himself, and hoists Ben up as good as he can. “Dude, you’re deranged. You could’ve—”

“Shut up.” Ben’s hands are back on the sides of his face, and his lips are back on Sammy’s. The heat is back, too—it never really left—and Sammy throws all caution to the wind.

Ben kisses exactly the way you’d imagine, intense and passionate. The way he sucks on Sammy’s tongue makes a shiver run down Sammy’s spine, makes him press in closer and try to lose himself in Ben’s warmth. His hands find their way under Ben’s shirt, splayed fingers against skin. Hold Ben up, hold him close.

Ben makes a guttural noise deep in his throat, and Sammy has to break the kiss. He pulls back, sucks in a lungful of air. “Ben,” he says, unsure what he’s planning to follow up with. “Ben, I—”

“I love you.” Ben just says it, like he does, like there’s nothing even to it. Cups his hand against Sammy’s cheek. It doesn’t leave Sammy much choice but to meet Ben’s eyes, which are smiling and full of warmth. “I’m so glad you’re staying.”

Sammy nods, doesn’t trust the lump in his throat to allow him to speak. Suddenly, Ben’s weight is too much, makes him feel like his shoulders are going to dislocate if he stays like this a moment longer. Ben seems to notice, untangles his legs and slides back down to his feet.

“I’m glad, too, Ben. I—” The words get stuck in his throat as his chest contracts to strangle them. He can’t put into words how much he hates this feeling.

Ben strokes the hair out of his face. “It’s all good. Don’t freak yourself out. We’re both glad you’re staying, yeah?”

Sammy nods, bites the side of his tongue as he can feel a tell-tale prickling underneath his eyelids. Ben just smiles, presses a brief kiss against his lips. “Good.” He puts his palms against Sammy’s chest, nudges. “Then get a move on. If we don’t leave within the next thirty minutes, we’ll be late for our show.”

Sammy steps back to allow Ben to move out from between him and the wall. Gives him a grin. “I’m never late.”

“That is probably the biggest load of horseshit you’ve ever told, which is saying something.” Ben jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Go get your bag, I’ll load up the car.”


	7. Chapter 7

Sammy drives them over the mountains east of King Falls and into Idaho.

Ben’s never been this way. College was in Portland, and at nineteen, he took a road trip south with a bunch of friends to see the Redwoods. East of King Falls is just an empty wasteland to him, vast plains full of buffalo and Republicans hidden from view by tall mountain ranges. He always figured that if King Falls were to suffer an attack by zombies or misshapen mutants, these creatures would come over the hills in the east.

He may be on to something there. The UFO that took Emily did come over the hills in the east. Once he’s had that thought, he keeps a sharp eye out for anything out of the ordinary—unlabeled turnoffs, drones, a barbed wire fence that could belong to an Area 51-type facility.

The only thing he spots is an elk grazing by the side of the road. It has nothing to do with aliens, but it’s still pretty cool.

Two Summits, when they arrive, turns out to be quite picturesque. It doesn’t compare to King Falls when you come in over the mountains on Route 72, but it may very well be a contestant for Second Best Small Town in America. It’s stretched out at the bottom of a valley along a lake so clear it almost hurts to look at. The road meanders down and spills them onto a main street that’s lined with Victorian-esque street lamps. The store fronts are paneled in colored wood and look like they were taken from the set of _Django Unchained_. If Ben ever finds himself location scouting for a Tarantino western, he’ll know where to go.

“What’s our hotel called again?”

Sammy’s immune to the town’s charms. He’s peering at the businesses lining the street, lower lip pinched between his teeth.

Ben checks his phone. “Uh, Third Street Inn. Guess it’s on 3rd Street?”

“Well, if it is, I’ll have to turn around.”

“Oh, wait, no. We _are_ on 3rd Street.”

“We are?” Sammy frowns. “This looks more like a Main Street than a 3rd Street.”

“Main Street _is_ 3rd Street. I think? It’s weird—oh, over there!”

Sammy jumps, looks where Ben is pointing at the Third Street Inn’s sign, about fifty feet down a side street and barely visible between two cars. He swears under his breath, quickly changes lanes, and turns without indicating or even glancing in the mirror. Ben grabs the door handle, throws a glance over his shoulder for the inevitable Dodge Ram bearing down on them.

It doesn’t manifest. The street behind them is clear safe for a couple of cars far enough away not to be bothered by Sammy’s big city driving. Ben rolls his eyes. “That’s right, make us popular with the locals before we even get out of the car.”

“Oh, whatever. There’s nobody out, anyway. It’s probably past curfew.”

“That attitude is gonna go down great on local radio. Small town folks love being condescended to by out-of-towners.”

“Must be what I did right in King Falls.”

“Hmm.” Ben narrows his eyes, but gets ignored as Sammy pulls into the Third Street Inn’s parking lot and up to the office. He waves Sammy off as he reaches to unbuckle his seat belt. “I’ll deal with it.”

He’s got all the details on his phone, emailed to him by Merv. He’s got them downloaded, too, and it’s a good thing he does, because he steps right into an absolutely un-awesome mobile dead zone as he enters the lobby.

The girl at the counter is maybe sixteen and presumably the owners’ daughter. She clocks his grimace and hands him the Wi-Fi card without comment. Ben decides that she’s gonna do great once she takes over.

He takes the old-fashioned key she gives him back to the car, gets in as he types the password into his phone. “106. Around the back.”

“Just one room?”

Sammy’s tone is neutral. Ben glances over, thinks of their apartment in King Falls—it’s their apartment now, not just his anymore—and of the fact that the spare room hasn’t seen any use in a while. “Do we need more than one?”

“Guess not.” Sammy parks, kills the engine, and gets out without another word. Ben presses his lips together. Sometimes he wonders if there’s a way to get a doctor to prescribe daily truth serum injections. Sammy would certainly benefit.

He leaves Sammy to deal with their bags and goes to unlock the door. The room’s pretty nice for standard motel fare—two queen beds to the left and a TV on a dresser to the right. He throws a quick glance into the bathroom and is satisfied to find towels and a bathtub not made of plastic. This should be fine for a couple of days.

“Merv’s not one to splurge, is he.”

Sammy’s standing between the beds running a finger over the nightstand. Judging by his expression, the dust levels don’t meet his approval.

“He’s probably spending all his money on rebuilding the station.” Ben picks the bed nearest the door, plops down on it and bounces a little. The mattress is acceptable enough. He leans back on his hands. “Are you all right, man?”

Sammy looks over, meets Ben’s eyes. He still doesn’t look great. It’s better than it was—only a couple of weeks ago, Sammy looked like a guy well on his way to the palliative care ward. There’s a bit more color in his cheeks now, a little less darkness hanging around his eyes. But his cheekbones are still too pronounced, his shirt too loose around his shoulders. It’s hard to keep weight on when you’re not eating.

“I’m fine,” he says. If Ben had a nickel for every time he heard that. Waits and watches as Sammy grabs his bag, puts it on the bed to start unpacking. It takes two shirts and a pair of jeans until he finally caves. “Haven’t been on the air in a while. I guess I’m dealing with some nerves.”

 _And memories of the last time you were on the air_. Ben remembers it only too well—or he would if he let himself. What he can’t shake are his gut memories, that feeling of despair and helplessness as he listened to Sammy being taken. What he thought was Sammy being taken, snatched right from him just like Emily.

Fucking great. Now he’s made himself think about it.

“Ben.”

Even better, Sammy’s noticed. Ben clenches his teeth. The mattress dips before he can say anything. Sammy takes his hand, interlaces their fingers. It makes Ben’s heart pick up a few beats.

“I’m sorry. I know I keep saying it, but I really am. I wish—”

Sammy stalls, and Ben glances over. “What?”

Sammy laughs, the tips of his ears growing red. “I wish I’d met you in college. Everything since—it’s gotten so damn complicated. College was—I think we’d have gotten along great. Hang out, talk about random shit they taught us in class. Sneak off—”

None of that was ever Ben’s college experience, but Sammy’s words put a smile on his face all the same. “Sneak off into empty classrooms to make out?”

Sammy looks down, his blush draining away. He’s hunching his shoulders, looks small and sad. Like he needs a hug, maybe. It’s Sammy, though, so Ben’s not sure it’s welcome when he lets go of Sammy’s hand to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

He doesn’t pull away. After a few long moments, he even leans into Ben a little. Closes his eyes, and Ben reaches up to complete the embrace.

“This is really hard.” Quiet, muffled against Ben’s shoulder. Sammy’s not one to cry, so it takes Ben a moment to realize what’s happening when he feels moisture soak into his shirt.

It makes his throat close up, makes his own eyes itch, but he sits quietly as Sammy continues.

“I made a promise.” He’s almost inaudible. “And I don’t know how I’m meant to break it. I don’t—” A tremor runs through him. “I don’t wanna be alone, Ben. I’ve been alone all my life, I don’t—”

“Hey.” Ben’s voice breaks, and fuck, now he’s crying, too. “You don’t gotta be. Okay? Nobody— _nobody_ —wants you to be. If Jack—” His throat catches on the name. Sammy shivers in his arms, so Ben has to hold him more tightly. “If Jack loved you, Sammy, he’d want you to be happy. He’d want you to not be alone. What you’re doing, it’s _killing_ you. You are literally gonna be dead within a year, and he can’t have wanted that.”

Sammy’s shoulders tense. “I don’t know what Jack wanted.” He sits up, pulls back. Pushes Ben away and gets to his feet. “I don’t know what Jack wanted, because we never fucking talked about it. We never fucking talked about anything.”

Ben put the keys down on the dresser earlier. Sammy grabs them. Before Ben can stop him, he’s heading for the door. “Don’t follow me.”

“Sammy!” Like hell. Ben jumps to his feet, runs to catch up, but he’s just a little bit too slow. Sammy slams the door shut, shoves it closed as Ben throws his weight against it. “Sammy, don’t you _dare_ —”

He digs his feet into the carpet, only too aware that Sammy took the key. He could easily use it to lock the door, lock Ben inside to keep him from following. The idea makes his mind go blank, makes him throw himself against the door once again—

—and stumble through as the resistance suddenly disappears. Two arms catch him, but his momentum still knocks them both off balance. They would’ve fallen if not for the hood of Ben’s car.

“Jesus!” Ben catches himself, sorts himself out just enough to turn on Sammy. “You massive fucking asshole!”

“Ben—”

“Don’t you dare apologize.” He’s done. He’s so fucking _done_. Points a shaking finger at the door. “Get back inside.”

Sammy does, like a kid who’s been told off. Ben has every intention to follow, but his feet won’t budge. He’s trembling, heart pounding in his chest as he tries to get a handle on his temper. This is the kind of rage he hasn’t felt in years, the kind of rage that made him break another kid’s nose in college for saying the wrong fucking thing at the wrong fucking time.

He hasn’t told Sammy about that, has he? He hasn’t told anyone about that. Maybe he’s not the open book he likes to think he is.

“ _Fuck_!”

It’s nobody’s nose this time. His boot connects with one of the headlights, sends plastic every which way as the cover splinters under the force of the impact. Now he’s probably going to get pulled over for a broken headlight, and it’s going to cost money on top of getting it fixed. He has half a mind to kick the other one in as well, just barely manages to step back.

Takes a deep breath. Takes another one. Sets his jaw and heads back into the room.

Sammy’s sitting on the bed by the window, up against the headrest with his knees pulled up to his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just follows Ben with his eyes as Ben starts pacing up and down between the dresser and the beds.

It takes him two lengths to sort out his brain, and then another to get close enough so he’s not shouting all the way across the room. Stops at the foot of Sammy’s bed, holds Sammy’s eyes. He’s not sure he’s ever seen eyes quite like that. They’re really fucking green.

“You can’t keep doing this to me, man.” He’s momentarily mortified to hear his voice waver, but really, he’s a snotty mess, anyway. A few more tears don’t really make a difference at this point. “You walk away from me like that, what do you think it looks like?”

Sammy swallows, opens his mouth. Closes it, shakes his head. “Ben, I’m—”

“It looks like you’re gonna do yourself harm,” Ben interrupts him. This is where voice training comes in handy. He can employ his diaphragm, keep his voice halfway steady while his throat’s trying to choke him to death. Still has to take a deep breath before he can continue. “I know you said you wouldn’t, but Sammy, you say a lot of things. And I can’t—”

Voice training abandons him. He sucks in another breath, then another. A little too quick in succession, which makes his head swim. Sammy uncurls, moves towards him, but Ben holds up a hand. “Don’t move. Fucking listen to me.”

Sammy stops. Ben nods, takes a step back to steady himself against the dresser. “I don’t have a whole lot of people, Sammy. I have my mom, and—I had Emily, but that’s—anyway. It’s you. My mom and you. That’s it. And I said—I said I’d put up with your shit, and I will, but Sammy, I’m not gonna put up with you walking away from me. You gotta stop doing that.”

He’s got more—or really, he doesn’t. He just feels like he should repeat what he just said, over and over until Sammy gets it. He’s not going to let Sammy walk away, he’s not going to let him disappear, and he’s certainly not going to forget him. He couldn’t if he tried. But it’s like he’s hit his word limit for the day, like his vocal cords have shut down and retired for the night.

Sammy gets to his feet like he’s been wanting to the past few minutes, comes over. Tries to put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, but Ben sidesteps him. Keeps his back against the dresser, though; he doesn’t quite trust himself to stand without the support. “Don’t touch me,” he says. Seems like he’s got a few words left, after all. “Don’t— _placate_ me. I’m not twelve.”

“I know.” Sammy’s standing there like a scare crow at a fancy luncheon who doesn’t remember how he got there. Finally crosses his arms in that way he has that makes it look like he’s trying to hold himself together. “I’m _sorry_ , Ben. I don’t—”

“Stop fucking saying that!” The anger’s back, just a shadow of what he felt earlier, but enough to make him raise his voice. “I don’t want you to be sorry. You think I’m mad because you’re hurting _me_?”

Sammy’s face is downright terrified, but there’s no stopping this. Ben just so manages to keep himself from giving Sammy a good shove, slams his palm down on the dresser instead. “I want you to stop hurting _you_! You really want this, Sammy? You want me to be able to just—walk away from you? ‘Aw, shucks, yeah, there used to be this guy that I did that radio show with, whatever happened to him, but really, who the fuck cares, as long as I’ve got everything I need.’ You’re worth more than that, Sammy. You matter more than that, and you need to stop telling me you don’t!”

The entire fucking motel can probably hear this fight. Ben has a sudden mental image of a horde of Rocky Mountain rednecks cupping their ears against the walls and taking notes to post about this on their Make Idaho Great Again Facebook page.

They’re not getting much from Sammy, though. Sammy’s not saying anything, just clinging to himself and looking at Ben like he’s the Spanish Inquisition.

“I’m gonna take a shower.” He doesn’t know he’s going to say it till he does. Sounds like a plan, though. “We have to be on air in an hour, and we haven’t even checked out the set-up yet. You’re gonna have to pull your weight, Sammy, because there’s a good chance I’ll just jump down each and every caller’s throat tonight if you let me speak. So, like. Let’s just get through this, yeah?”

Sammy nods. Clears his throat. “Yeah, all right. It’ll be fine, I can just—” He stalls, looks for words. Shakes his head. “It’ll be fine. Go shower.”

“Yeah. Okay.” The rage is gone again, has left that gaping hole of nothing in his chest that he’s become far too familiar with over the past couple years. Sammy looks like he’s got one of his own. It’s a shitty, shitty feeling, but right now, nothing comes close to sufficiently filling it.

He puts a hand on Sammy’s arm as he walks past him. He’s not the Spanish Inquisition, the gesture tries to say, just at the end of his rope and too tired to keep being patient. Sammy doesn’t react. Ben supposes this is where he has to accept that what’s going to happen is going to happen.

When he comes back out of the bathroom, Sammy’s still there. Ben wouldn’t call it a win, but it’s a step in the right direction. He’ll take it.

\------

The show ends up being a disaster, mildly put.

Ben was right when he predicted that people as much as breathing incorrectly would piss him off. He manages to keep his mouth shut in lieu of saying nothing nice, but that means that it’s on Sammy to entertain their callers, the standard AM talk radio show crowd ranging from weird to strange. Sammy, being Sammy, does decently well, but Ben can tell he’s hanging in there by his fingernails.

It’s twelve-thirty, half an hour to the end of the show, when Shotgun Sammy comes out. They’re on the phone with what Ben pictures as the Archie Simmons of Two Summits, except that instead of Pomchis, he keeps mentioning his wife and children. They’ve somehow ended up talking about the current White House administration, which is a sign of how badly the night is going. Not-Archie’s telling them that people from the city just _don’t understand_. There is only so much Ben can do not to snap that while he can’t speak for Mr. Manbun over there, his own city’s probably smaller than Two Summits, and he’s heard enough excuses to last him a lifetime.

He’s seconds away from blurting it out when Sammy finally loses it. “Oh, please,” he spits with enough disgust to make Ben snap his head up. “Stop trying to tell me that your vote in 2016 had anything to do with political integrity. You probably changed parties in June of 2015 because you couldn't face the fact that your entire life's a sham. Get off my airwaves, you hypocritical closet freak.”

Ben gets that last one with the buzzer. Thank God for that. He wouldn’t put it past Merv to charge them for the loss of profit they’re generating tonight. If they contract a defamation lawsuit on top of that, it’s definitely coming out of their paychecks.

“And that’s our heated story, K—Two Summits,” he interjects, so goddamn cheerful it makes his head hurt. Sammy’s hung up, pale as a ghost and slashing at his throat with a not-quite-steady hand. Yeah, no shit. Ben pulls up the commercial queue. “We’d love to hear yours, but first we gotta pay some bills. Be right back after a word from our sponsors.”

The commercial starts playing, something about a ski resort up a mountain nearby. Sammy pulls his headset off. Ben follows suit and catches the tail-end of what Sammy’s saying.

“—something we can play? Anything, man, just something to fill the last thirty minutes. Please, I don’t think I can—”

“Weirdly enough, I didn’t prepare any filler content for tonight.” Sammy flinches, and Ben feels fucking terrible for it. He takes a deep breath, holds up a hand. “Gimme a second.”

There’s only so many ways to set up a folder structure on a PC. This show’s producer seems to prefer the top-level mess-on-the-desktop filing system. Sort by file type, sort by file size, and he’s got one that’s most likely long enough and hopefully show-appropriate content. The file name is _db-memorial-thingamajig_. He tucks one shell of the headset between his ear and shoulder, quickly scrolls through the file in—what is this program, Audacity? Merv’s a cheap bastard everywhere, then.

 _I got something_ , he mouths at Sammy as he queues it up. Sammy all but collapses in his chair. He’s got the energy left to put his headset back on, though, listens with glassy eyes as Ben proves he’s really not that bad when it comes to last-second improvising.

“Welcome back, Two Summits. You’re listening to 780 on the AM dial. I know we said we’d take your calls, but we just received a tribute to a great man that, while maybe a little out-of-date, is as timeless as the artist himself. Please join us in remembering the one and only Legend of the Labyrinth, Ziggy Stardust as he lived and breathed. You’re still with us, buddy, now and always.”

The file starts playing, a boring drone of a voice hitting all the standard cues of a snooze fest of a memorial tape. Ben pulls his headset off before he can hear all the outdated early 2016 references that he missed on his super-quick screening. Sammy’s done the same, headset-less and slung back in his chair with his arms crossed. He’s eying Ben across the broadcast desk with a tiny smirk on his face. It’s not a happy expression, but it’s still better than the one he had just a few moments ago.

“David Bowie? Really?”

“It’s literally the first thing I found on this mess of a laptop.”

Sammy holds up his hands. “Fair enough. Though I do think Robert’s gonna feel like we’re rubbing it in.”

“On the list of things I couldn’t give less of a shit about, Robert’s, like, way at the top. _Way_ at the top. Dude voted Republican in 2016, man.”

Sammy nods, closes his eyes. It looks a bit like a blink gone wrong, like his lids came down and he just forgot to pull them up again. Ben glances at his phone. Their follow-up host should be showing up in about ten minutes. The polite thing would be to stay and do a proper handover, but really, right now polite’s up there on the list with Robert.

“Come on.” He gets up, grabs his phone off the desk. “We’re leaving.”

“But the tape’s still playing.” Sammy waves a vague hand. It’s a token protest; he gets to his feet moments later. “Merv’s gonna fire me.” He follows Ben into the parking lot. “And if he doesn’t, he should. This was terrible.”

They come up to the car, which sits there in the dark with a black spot where the second headlight should be. Ben’s guts clench at the sight. Suddenly, he’s not feeling numb anymore. Suddenly, Sammy’s presence right behind him doesn’t feel foreign anymore, and the disgust in Sammy’s voice makes his insides ache.

He stops, turns around. Sammy barely manages to avoid walking straight into him, stops short close enough so all Ben has to do is wrap his arms around him. He does, feels a tremor run through him, and hugs Sammy more tightly. “You did really well.” He presses his nose against the side of Sammy’s neck, then presses a kiss there. “I’m sorry I made you come back. It’s too soon, and I should’ve known that. But you did really well tonight.”

In Sammy’s silence, Ben can hear all the protests Sammy’s not voicing. But that’s another step, not jumping at the chance to tear himself down. Ben will take it. “And I’m sorry for earlier. I know you’re trying your hardest.”

Sammy’s hands come up, settle against Ben’s back. “I am.” He rests his cheek against the side of Ben’s head. “But—I get it. I don’t mean to imply you don’t matter. Or that I don’t matter. I just—” He swallows, lets out a deep, shaky sigh. “I’m tired, man.”

“That makes two of us.” Ben pulls back, nudges an unresisting Sammy in direction of the car. “Get in. I’ll take us home.”


	8. Chapter 8

Sammy spends the whole night being chased by darkness.

It’s a new twist on an old shtick. The darkness has become somewhat of a nightly routine—sometimes hanging out at the edges of his dreams, sometimes consuming everything and giving him that feeling of waking unreality that’s probably the kind of thing you feel when you really should be seeing a therapist.

It’s never chased him down, though—or maybe it’s just that he’s never tried to run from it. He tries tonight, runs through vague, never-ending dreamscapes that look like the stretch of Route 72 that leads into King Falls, like the dirt path past Mrs. Livingston’s trailer he had to take as a kid to catch the bus. For a while, it’s his and Jack’s street in L.A., then it’s a road he remembers driving down years ago somewhere in Texas. Eventually, it’s nothing, just his chest burning and his side aching and his feet carrying him further and further away from this undefined, ever-present thing that’s become so familiar Sammy’s beginning to understand how Stockholm Syndrome works.

When he wakes, he’s surprised to find himself tucked under the sheets in his motel bed, breathing normally and without a stitch tearing through his side. Dreams are wild, man.

The room’s quiet. Probably still early, then—either that, or late enough for the lull between morning and lunch. Either way, there’s nowhere Sammy needs to be until tonight, which with his current ability to plan ahead might as well be in ten years. For now, he’s free to just lie here. Lie here and watch Ben.

Ben’s not sleeping in the other bed. Sammy doesn’t know when exactly they gave up on the pretense of wanting separate sleeping arrangements, but they didn’t even exchange words about it last night. Ben just crawled under the sheets next to him. That’s where Ben still is now, curled up around a pillow he’s hugging to his chest.

As still as he is right now, he barely looks like himself. There’s no nervous twitch around his mouth, no crazy eyes flitting back and forth looking for frame-ups and conspiracy. Like this, he looks like a guy who sees nothing wrong with saying “I love you” to his co-host live on air just because that’s what he genuinely feels.

Who gets his co-host to say it back, even though said co-host hasn’t ever said those words to anybody other than the man he promised to marry.

He really should’ve known right then and there, shouldn’t he? No matter how bad he is at recognizing his own feelings, he was practically telling himself.

Sammy reaches out, traces a finger along Ben’s hairline and brushes a strand out of his face. Ben shifts, hugs the pillow harder. Sammy doesn’t pull back, trails his fingers down Ben’s cheek.

Ben makes a small sound. His eyes open slowly, unfocused and half-lidded until his gaze settles on Sammy. His lips pull into a smile. “Morning.”

“Morning, Ben.”

Sammy doesn’t stop touching. He probably should; it’s not a stolen moment anymore. Instead, he brushes his fingers over the tip of Ben’s ear and down through his hair. Ben’s eyelids flutter when Sammy’s hand comes to rest against the side of his neck, thumb softly stroking under Ben’s ear.

“Feels nice.” Ben’s still smiling, soft and fond. He turns his head, presses a kiss on the inside of Sammy’s wrist. The sensation travels all the way to Sammy’s spine, makes his skin feel prickly and sensitive. He shifts closer.

Ben’s awake in an instant. He doesn’t jump, but his gaze goes from foggy to clear in the time it takes him to meet Sammy’s eyes. Definitely not a stolen moment anymore. Sammy’s heartrate picks up, but it’s not the bad kind of excitement. It’s a different kind, an enjoyable one. He hasn’t felt it in a long time.

He smiles, then laughs when the smile’s not enough to release the buzzing under his skin. Ben’s eyes grow wary. Sammy shakes his head, settles his hand more firmly against the back of Ben’s neck.

“Have I ever told you how great I think you are?”

“Ah.” That didn’t help the wariness. Ben’s eyes narrow. “I’m not—”

“You’re really fucking great, Ben. You’re, like, the antithesis to every bad thing that’s ever happened to me. I look at you, and it’s just—you’re perfect. The stars aligned, with you, and made someone perfect. I can’t believe it, half the time.”

Ben doesn’t look wary anymore. He’s blushing, his earlobe against Sammy’s wrist growing warm. Squints his eyes like Sammy’s words are too bright, laughs. “Dude, are you okay? You sound like you hit your head, or something.”

“No.” Sammy’s still smiling. “I mean it, Ben. I’m—”

“Couldn’t sleep and raided the minibar? You don’t smell like booze, but vodka doesn’t—”

“No.” Sammy props himself up, moves a little closer still. “Just accept it, Ben. You’re perfect, I don’t make the rules.”

“Bodysnatched. You’ve clearly been bodysnatched, and you’re trying to—”

“Shut up.” He ducks down. Ben doesn’t seem surprised when he goes in for a kiss, squirms his arms free and wraps them around Sammy. Sammy ends up on top of him, the pillow Ben was hugging earlier awkwardly trapped between them until Ben yanks it out and shoves it aside.

It’s more than just a kiss, it’s a full-body make-out. Sammy sucks on Ben’s tongue, scrapes his teeth just so against Ben’s lip. One of his hands is trapped, but the other he slides it into Ben’s hair, which is thick and full and feels so nice between his fingers that he makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat.

“Shit.” Ben’s breathless, squirms as Sammy noses along his jaw, sucks a kiss against the skin underneath. That’s the nice thing about radio, nobody can see your hickeys. He shifts, slides his thigh between Ben’s legs.

The reaction is instant. Ben bucks up, startled as much as stimulated. His fingers claw into the back of Sammy’s t-shirt, and he lets out a strangled gasp.

Like having sex with a goddamn teenager. Sammy laughs, softly noses the side of Ben’s jaw. Presses a kiss underneath his ear.

“Calm down.” Even to himself, the smile’s evident in his voice. “We haven’t even done anything.”

“Yeah, well, you sorta jumped me.”

He did. There’s sudden doubt. He didn’t even ask, did he? Just went ahead—

“Augh, Sammy.” Ben’s fingers dig into his back. “I didn’t mean to make you start thinking. Stop it. Do—do the thing again.”

“The thing?” He frees his hand so he can prop himself up. “What thing is that?”

Ben’s eyes spark a glare. “The _thing_. That you did with your leg.”

“You mean this?” Sammy shifts so he’s more next to than on top of Ben, gives himself some leeway to move his leg with greater precision. Even if he didn’t already know—at this point, he’s more familiar with Ben’s routines than he’d like to admit—he’d be able to tell that Ben’s not wearing anything underneath his PJ pants. There’s very little separating them.

Sammy feels heat gathering in the pit of his stomach as he watches Ben’s eyelids flutter. It intensifies with a jolt when Ben grinds his hips up and swears. “Fuck. _Sammy_.”

“Right here.” He ducks back down, slides a hand under Ben’s t-shirt as he finds Ben’s lips again. He provides a counterpoint to Ben rocking up against him, slides his palm over warm skin and slides his tongue against Ben’s as their kiss deepens. He can feel traces of perspiration against Ben’s side, rubs an experimental thumb over the nub of one nipple. Ben shudders, and then there’s hands tugging on Sammy’s t-shirt.

“Take—mhm. Off.” Ben’s out of breath, has that glint in his eyes that speaks of a needle-point focus. It’s hot as all hell.

“You take yours off.” Sammy moves back, tugs Ben with him as he gets to his knees. It takes a bit of scrambling on Ben’s part, mostly because Ben starts pulling off his t-shirt before he’s even properly sat up.

Clothes are flung aside. Sammy’s not been getting much exercise in, but he’s also not really been eating, so he figures he probably falls somewhere in the scrawny to average range of topless male. Ben’s just Ben, short and well-proportioned. His chest is flushed, and it creeps up his neck under Sammy’s scrutiny.

“Dude, I know. Too much Nutella. But now that they have it at the Bent & Dent, I can’t not—”

“Literally the farthest thing from my mind.” Sammy moves closer, slides his arms around Ben’s waist. Skin meets bare skin, and Ben makes a sound. He puts his palms against Sammy’s chest, traces his thumbs along the ridges of collarbone.

It’s a tender moment all of a sudden. The excitement is still there, but it’s giving way to something else. It’s meant to be a good feeling, this, the feeling of being close to someone important, of sharing a moment with them that’s just meant for the two of you.

Right now, though, Sammy’s just feeling guilty. He’s not meant to be feeling this. Not with somebody new. If this is what he’s doing, maybe it means that his dishonesty goes further than a few lies of omission. Maybe it goes as far back as Jack, as L.A. As far as that promise that he made that he’s in the process of breaking.

“Hey.” Hands slide up his chest, interlock behind his neck. “You okay?”

Ben doesn’t sound annoyed, at least. That’s something. Sammy draws in a breath, exhales a shaky sigh. “No.”

The admission makes him shudder. Ben’s thumb starts to softly stroke the nape of his neck.

“What’s going on?”

Sammy lets out a dry laugh, surprises himself with it. Ben may not be annoyed, but he is. “The same shit that’s always going on. I’m kind of a one-trick-pony that way.”

“Right.” Ben shifts back, tugs him along. “Come on.”

Ben makes them crawl back under the sheet. He spoons up against Sammy’s back, slides his arm around Sammy’s waist. Presses a kiss against the side of his neck. Even half-naked as they are, this is more comforting than titillating. Ben’s nice and warm and close, and Sammy shuts his eyes, tries to center himself.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Not particularly. But there’s the fight from last night, the pain and the fear Sammy could tell were fueling Ben’s rage. The shitty feeling of knowing himself to be the cause. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m not sure this is real.” He says it while he’s still trying to come up with a way to verbalize any of what he’s feeling at all. Seems like part of his brain is ahead of him on that.

Judging by his silence, though, Ben doesn’t know what to do with it. Sammy shifts onto his back. Ben’s watching him with a dismayed frown and bewilderment in his eyes. He wets his lips. “I’m not talking—clones, or holodeck, or whatever. Not physical reality.”

“Okay.” The dismay wears off, but not the confusion. “So—what, then? What’s not real?”

“Me.” That answer happens way too quickly for comfort. Sammy swallows, has to stop himself from pulling away. Ben’s arms around him tighten. “The shit that’s going on with me, it’s—dude, I don’t even know.” He glances off to the side, has to take a few even breaths. Something in his chest is trying to choke him. Not that that’s anything new. “I don’t know which feelings to trust, what’s important and what’s just—an echo, or something I’m lying to myself about. I don’t know what’s _real_.” His eyes burn, so he blinks, clenches his jaw. “It’s too goddamn much. I tried to just ignore it all, but—”

“That’s how you ended up in Perdition Wood. Oh, Sammy.” Ben sounds so fucking sad. Presses a kiss against Sammy’s temple, and Sammy uses the opportunity to turn around, duck his head down and hide his face in Ben’s chest.

“I don’t even know if I loved Jack anymore.” He never thought he’d be able to say it, wasn’t even able to admit it in the privacy of his own head. But there it is. It wasn’t even that hard. “He’s been gone for so long, and I don’t know—I don’t trust my memories, Ben, I don’t know if they’re telling me what’s real or just what I thought was real because—because I fucking promised to marry the guy, right, so I must’ve loved him, but here I am with you. Isn’t love meant to be forever?”

“Jesus.” Ben sounds as breathless and shaky as Sammy feels. “Sammy, I—”

“Fuck this.” Sammy pulls back. Ben’s looking wide-eyed and terrified, and this is _not_ what he wants for today. This isn’t what he wants for any day. He slides a hand behind Ben’s neck, presses a firm kiss to his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it, Ben. I have no answers, you have no answers, it’s just—bullshit. Dumb, stupid shit nobody can make sense of, because it doesn’t make any sense. I just—”

The way Ben’s looking at him, it seems like he’s pleading for an out, something that’ll allow him to forget what Sammy just told him.

That makes two of them.

Sammy shifts a little closer, noses against Ben’s cheek. “I just wanna feel good. With you. Spend some time making each other feel good. You up for that?”

Ben makes a strangled sound. Sammy can feel him shudder as he tightens the embrace. “Shit. Yeah. Okay, yes. But I have no clue what I’m doing, Sammy. I don’t know how much—”

Sammy silences him with a kiss, slides his tongue into Ben’s mouth and a hand down his back. Finds his waistband and sneaks his fingers underneath. Ben’s ass is firm and round and fits into his palm as neatly as everything else regarding Ben just slots into place for Sammy.

Ben responds eagerly enough. Sammy can feel his fingers curl against his back, helps along as Ben tries to grind his crotch against Sammy. He twists his hips and pulls up his knee, gives Ben his thigh to rub against. Unsurprisingly, the firmness from earlier is gone, but the way Ben’s breathing speeds up as he moves and shifts, it won’t be long till it comes back.

Sammy nips his teeth against Ben’s lip, presses a line of kisses along his jaw. Reaches Ben’s earlobe and nibbles on it, which makes Ben shudder and give off the most ridiculous little giggle. Sammy grins.

“You like that?”

“I, uh. Ah.” Ben sounds so damn distracted already. Sammy cants his hips, presses his leg harder against Ben’s crotch, tightens his grip on Ben’s ass—and yep, there it is. He can feel Ben’s erection forming through his pants. “Ye-es.” Ben laughs. “Shit, Sammy—oh!”

Sammy pushes forward, makes Ben fall onto his back so he can roll on top of him. They’re close, Ben’s palms against his back and holding him against Ben’s body. It’s Sammy’s turn to grind his hips, rub himself up against Ben’s leg as he can feel his own dick hardening.

“What else do you like?” He ducks down, flicks his tongue against Ben’s earlobe, pleased when he can feel Ben shudder underneath. Ben’s hands slide up his back, cling to his shoulders.

“I dunno, Sammy, I—oh, God.”

Sammy’s moved his mouth to the side of Ben’s neck, cups his lips over a patch of skin and sucks. His leg’s pressed firmly against Ben’s crotch, his own grinding down against Ben’s thigh. It creates a good amount of friction that travels up his spine, makes his body and limbs tingle all the way down to his fingertips.

He lets off of Ben’s neck, licks the reddened skin, lightly scrapes his teeth over it. Ben shudders, makes a keening noise. Sammy smiles. “I have it on good authority that I’m quite skilled with my mouth,” he says, flicks his tongue against Ben’s earlobe again just because he can. “And not just on the air, if you catch my drift.”

Ben groans. “God, that’s _terrible_. You sound like Chet, Sammy, that’s not sexy.” He does a good job of sounding scandalized, but the tremor of arousal in his voice gives him away. Sammy presses a kiss on the hickey that’s forming on Ben’s neck.

“I promise you, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“God—hgnh.” Ben laughs, tugs on Sammy’s shoulders. “Okay, yes, but first—”

He pulls him up, and their eyes meet. Something in Sammy’s gut twists, tries to ruin this, but he clamps down firmly and nips it in the bud. Smiles as he takes in Ben’s wide-eyed, somewhat shell-shocked state. “You okay?”

“I—yeah.” Ben’s still smiling, like he can’t help himself. The tip of his tongue flicks over his upper lip. “You?”

“I’m fine.” It’s the agreed-upon answer; it’s the only one Sammy’s willing to give right now. Ben seems to know that, accepts it after a couple of moments. A surge of gratitude runs through Sammy, and he ducks down for a kiss, tries to communicate what he can’t say.

“Now just relax.”

He makes his way down Ben’s chest, stops to suck on a nipple and finds confirmation that Ben’s partial to that. Ben’s stomach is just soft enough to allow for kisses and nibbles as he tugs down Ben’s pants. The waistband snags on Ben’s dick, makes Ben twitch and yelp. It makes Sammy smile. “Sorry.”

He’s between Ben’s legs now, the area of interest exposed in easy reach of his lips and tongue. Ben being circumcised doesn’t surprise him, but it’s a new one for him. He gently brushes his lips against the side of Ben’s dick.

“I do anything you don’t like, you let me know, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Ben’s voice has jumped a few registers above his normal pitch. “Do you mind—” Fingers slide into Sammy’s hair, cup the back of his head, tug on it a little as they snag on tied-back strands.

The sensation makes him shudder. He should’ve known Ben would go for that. A sound escapes him, and he grinds his dick into the mattress. “Please,” he gets out, has to laugh a little at himself. You’re too damn easy, Stevens. “Don’t hold back.”

Before Ben can reply, he ducks down and licks a wet strip up the side of Ben’s dick. Stops as he reaches the edge of the glans, slides the tip of his tongue underneath. Ben’s hips twitch; he makes a sound, and the grip on Sammy’s hair tightens. Sammy cups his lips against Ben, hums in the back of his throat and rubs his tongue back and forth.

“Shit.” Ben’s breathless, fingers in Sammy’s hair grappling as he tries to direct him without simply yanking him up by his hair. “Sammy, don’t _tease_.”

“I’m not teasing!” Sammy laughs, flicks his tongue between words. “You’re so goddamn impatient.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of my main personality trait— _shit_!”

Sammy’s taken him in now. Far be it from him to make Ben suffer unnecessarily, after all. Lip curled over his teeth, he uses his tongue to guide Ben against the roof of his mouth. He tastes salt almost immediately, sticky pre-come mixing with saliva and easing the movement.

“Shit, Sammy—God.” Ben’s shaking, hips twitching in aborted attempts to push deeper into Sammy’s mouth. He’s got both hands in Sammy’s hair now, clutching at him like a man drowning. Sammy shifts, gets a hand free to grasp Ben’s hip and squeeze it.

_It’s fine, Ben. Don’t hold back._

Ben gets it, or maybe he just loses the tight grip that he has on himself. He pushes up, slides deeper into Sammy’s mouth, establishes his own rhythm that Sammy does his best to match. Drawing a deep enough breath becomes harder, but Sammy doesn’t mind, welcomes the way his head starts to swim, welcomes the overwhelming smell in his nose and the taste in his mouth. Slides a hand down and finds his own dick trapped between his body and the mattress. It’s an awkward angle, but he doesn’t need much to intensify the prickling under his skin, make it spread further from his core into his limbs and up and down his spine.

“Sammy.” It’s a breathless gasp, Ben’s grip in his hair trying to pull him up. “Get back—”

Not a chance. Sammy bears down harder, hollows out his cheeks and sucks as he jerks his hips, fucks into his own hand. Ben swears like a sailor as he starts to come, salty liquid in the back of Sammy’s throat. Sammy sucks and swallows, draws out every last whimpering curse until Ben lets go of him.

“Sammy, I’m done. I’m good, it’s—”

He pulls back, gasps. The sudden oxygen makes his head spin. He rolls over onto his side, head nestled on Ben’s thigh, finally gives himself space to maneuver. The prickling under his skin is on the brink of escalation, his dick sliding against his palm and ratcheting the sensation up further.

“Come on.” Ben’s voice, and then there’s Ben’s hands, not pulling on his hair now but petting it, stroking his face. “Come on, Sammy, go ahead, it’s all right—”

He doesn’t make a sound as he comes, breath catching in his throat as his orgasm rolls through him. It explodes in a bright climax and ebbs away, taking with it everything he’s feeling. He comes back to himself curled up between Ben’s legs, head resting in Ben’s lap. The sheets are sweaty and bunched up around them, and there’s a salty taste in his mouth. Things don’t feel quite real.

“Hey.” That’s Ben. Ben’s tugging on his arm. Sammy concedes, clambers up until they’re level. Arms wrap around him, pull him close. Sammy slides his own around Ben’s waist.

“Hey,” Ben says again. They’re close enough so Sammy can feel his voice reverberating in his chest. “Hey, Sammy. You’re okay.”

Sammy nods a little, tightens his embrace. Waits as reality slowly begins to right itself. “You good?” he asks. This was Ben’s first time with a dude, after all.

A hand pets his hair. He can’t see Ben’s face, but he can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m great, Sammy. You _are_ pretty good with your mouth.”

“Told you.”

Ben laughs, presses a kiss to the top of Sammy’s head. “That you did.”


	9. Chapter 9

Sammy ends up going back to sleep.

He doesn’t mean to. One moment he’s curled up against Ben’s side and resting his eyes, next he’s startled awake by the click of the motel door. He blinks, turns around to find Ben throwing him a look across the room as he dumps a couple of take-out bags on the dresser.

“Dude. It’s, like, past noon. I know you need your beauty sleep and all, but if you keep this up, they’ll be recruiting you for every beauty pageant in the country. You’ll be too booked to do radio anymore.”

“Sorry.” He’s not entirely awake yet, offers the apology on autopilot as he gropes for his phone. Ben’s right, it’s 12:23. He scrubs a hand over his face, tries to wake himself up the rest of the way. “Where’d you go?”

“I was starving, so I got us something to eat.” Ben comes over, plops down on the side of the bed and makes the mattress bounce. “Also checked out the town. We have, like, a whole day to kill. Well. Half a day, at this point.”

“Hm.”

Ben’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, which makes sense, considering he left the motel. It’s a shame, though. Sammy still isn’t wearing anything, but he’s buried far enough under the sheets not to feel self-conscious about it. Maybe he wouldn’t even feel self-conscious about it without the sheets. Maybe this is their new normal, being around each other without the lingering unfamiliarity that was still there a couple of months ago.

The thought makes him smile. He slides a hand out from under the sheet, stretches to reach Ben’s. “Find anything good?”

Ben glances down at their hands, then over to meet Sammy’s eyes. Smiles as well and pulls one leg up. “Yeah, you know. It’s a cute town. Kind of a tourist trap, I think, ski resort and all. There’s Main Street, it runs all the way down to the lake—well, that’s 3rd Street, really, turns into Main Street down there. That one’s still weird. Anyway, you can take a walk along the lake, and they’ve got a ton of cute storefronts. There’s a coffee shop ‘bout fifteen minutes from here, they sell mint mojito lattes. You ever had one of those?”

As he listens, Sammy can feel the last traces of tension bleed out of his body. He could lie here all day, solely entertained by the Ben Arnold Tour Guide to Small Towns in America. It takes him a moment to realize that Ben asked a question, and then another to parse it. “Can’t say I have, no.”

“Dude, they’re—well, actually, they’re kind of gross. Mint and coffee _and_ mint and chocolate are just—idiotic combinations, nobody should try to sell those. They do taste like mojitos, though.”

“So—” Sammy props himself up on his elbows. “You don’t like mint and coffee or mint and chocolate, and you spent money on something called a mint mojito latte? What did you think you were gonna get? A caramel frappuccino?”

“No, I—we don’t get these in King Falls!” Ben spreads his hands. “We don’t get the fancy big city drinks, because we don’t get run over with big city tourists every winter. By the time King Falls gets a place selling mint mojito lattes, Two Summits will be selling—I dunno, clove cosmo cappuccinos. Which are probably also going to be gross, but you gotta take opportunities when they present themselves.”

That statement weighs heavier than Sammy’s sure Ben meant it. Ben’s noticed, too; Sammy can see it in his eyes, which narrow after a moment. “That’s a great segue into me asking if you’re ever gonna get out of bed. Are you? There’s a mini golf place I wanna check out.”

Sammy snorts. “Is it called Glory Holes?”

“No.”

“Pleasure Caves?”

“ _No_ , Sammy.”

“Goatse Gorges?”

“ _What_?”

Ben’s consternation has Sammy burst out laughing. He pushes the sheets aside, finally clambers out of bed. “Don’t google it.”

He’s barely closed the bathroom door when he hears the scream of a man who doesn’t know how to take good advice. He gets in the shower, ignores Ben banging on the door and cursing him out. This one really isn’t on him.

“Told you not to google it!”

They spend the afternoon mini-golfing at a place with the comparatively tame name of Pirate’s Cove. Once he sees it, Sammy gets a better idea of why Ben wanted to come here. It’s an adventure golf place, and not a bad one at that. There’s a throne for the pirate king, a severed plastic shark’s head on the wall, and a miniature pirate ship on a small lake in the back that’s even partially made of wood.

It puts Glory Holes to shame, that’s for sure.

It’s the middle of a work day, so the course is sparsely populated. The first few holes lead them past a waterfall, about ten feet high and splashing into a pool that’s part of the water channel network that runs through the entire course. Then there’s the Tsunami Hole, and it’s really in the name, but when a surprise jet of water catches Ben in the back just as he’s trying to land his shot, he still jumps like a cat startled by a water gun. It’s the funniest thing Sammy’s seen in a while.

They’re guided through the fake-belly of a pirate ship, past the galley and along the captain’s dining table. It’s laid out with abandoned dishes and a half-drunk cup of tea, which leads to Sammy finding out that Ben’s never heard the tale of the _Marie Celeste_. Pleased to have found a ghost story that’s new to Ben, he does his best to recount it in all its creepy detail. Ben listens, wide-eyed and distracted, and subsequently takes twelve shots to master Vasquez’ Cursed Treasure Hole. It puts Sammy back in reach of winning, which is something.

They’re at a three-point difference when they reach the last hole, an obstacle course leading through the pirate ship on the lake. Sammy goes first, pinches the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he navigates the ball through the nooks and crannies of the plastic green from the ship’s upper down into its cannon deck. He finishes at what he considers a respectable five shots. Ben’s so excited he’s barely able to speak.

“You’re done, Stevens. _Done_. I’ll get this done in three and you’ll owe me—something. Another mint mojito latte. Or, well. Something from that coffee place that’s not a disgusting mixture of bitter and minty.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get it done first, all right? You’re getting so worked up, you’ll probably take fifteen shots again. Then _you_ can buy _me_ one of those mojito lattes.”

“Fifteen? I never took fifteen, dude. I took _twelve_.”

It takes him six just to get back down into the cannon deck. When he gears up for his final one, he’s chewing his lip so vigorously Sammy’s worried he’ll gnaw right through it.

 _Come on_ , he thinks, crosses his arms in suspense. Not that he wants to lose, but he wants to keep from losing not nearly as badly as Ben seems to want to win.

Ben swings, hits. The ball saunters gently across fake wood, catches on the rim of the hole. It dithers back and forth, slides around. Finally, gravity takes hold. It settles in the hole with a clatter.

Ben lets out a scream so loud Sammy startles, leaps up, and punches the air. “Hell _yes_!”

He drops his club, throws his arms around Sammy’s neck, and presses a kiss to his lips. It happens so quickly Sammy barely has time to put his hands on Ben’s waist, let alone stop him. His shoulders go rigid in surprise, and Ben immediately pulls back.

“Right. Sorry. PDA. Not a fan, huh?”

“Not particularly.” Sammy glances around, scans the ceiling for cameras. He can’t spot any. They’re under deck and hidden from view. “On the other hand, this isn’t exactly public, right?”

“Right.” Ben’s smile returns, and Sammy ducks his head down to resume the kiss. It’s not a proper make-out, he’s not comfortable enough for that. It’s enough to elicit a happy little hum from Ben, though, make him smile like it’s Christmas when Sammy pulls back.

Sammy stoops down to collect their clubs before he motions for Ben to lead the way out. “Let’s go. I think I owe you a caffeinated drink.”

Main Street is as cute as Ben said it was, and the coffee shop is hipper than some Sammy used to frequent in L.A. He doesn’t choose the mojito coffee—something about that concept just feels fundamentally wrong—and instead takes two simple lattes back to his and Ben’s table.

“We got anything yet for our show tonight? Like, a topic?”

Ben, in the process of dumping his accustomed amount of sugar into the cup, throws Sammy a glance. “Uh, no. Not really. I wasn’t sure—”

“What?”

“Well—” Ben fumbles the lid back on. “I wasn’t sure you even wanted to do it. It didn’t exactly go well last night.”

“I want to do it.” The thought still fills him with a certain amount of dread, but it’s the kind of dread that in his experience goes away if you don’t pay it any notice. “Besides, I have to do it.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t joking last night when I said Merv should fire me. I signed a contract, Ben.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts.” He leans forward, rests his elbows on the table. “I was thinking that maybe we could do a thing on what this town has got to offer in the summer months. It’s clearly a winter type of tourist spot, but with the lake and, well, the pirate golf course, it’s not so bad in the summer, either.”

“I’d thought about that.” Ben frowns, digs his phone out of his pocket. “Did some research on it, that’s how I found the course—”

“I thought you didn’t have anything for tonight?”

“Well—nothing fixed!” Ben widens his eyes, drags his chair around. “Here, this is what I’ve got so far.”

\------

Ben “I Haven’t Researched This” Arnold manages to line them up an interview with the owner of a boat rental place and maps out four topics of discussion by the time they have to go on the air.

To say that it goes better than the night before is an understatement. Sammy feels better, has fun with the callers, and thoroughly enjoys the interview with the Ron Begley of Two Summits. She’s a tough-as-nails outdoorswoman who, when asked about the profitability of running a boat rental in a town that sees few tourists in the summer and has no use for boats in the winter, turns into an expert on getting the most out of your small business tax returns on both a state and a federal level. Sammy promises her a hook-up with Ariana Grande tickets in turn for helping him with his IRS filings, and Ben spends the next five minutes flailing at him for having missed the deadline.

When it’s time to wind down, Sammy’s surprised at how quickly the time passed. He does the wrap-up, and Ben segues them into the transfer commercial, looks pleased as punch as he pulls his headset off.

“That went really well!”

Sammy laughs, puts his own headset down. “You sound like you had doubts.”

“I—well—”

Sammy leaves him hanging for a bit before he lets him off the hook with a snort. Ben rolls his eyes. “Next guy should be here any moment. Really, he should be here now, he’s running l—”

The click of the door interrupts him. “Speak of the devil.”

The next guy is not a guy but a gal, a Melissa McCarthy lookalike coming in to do from one to five what Chet does in King Falls from ten to two. Sammy shakes her hand and leaves it to Ben to do the handover, steps outside the station to draw in some fresh, late-night summer air.

As he looks over the town spread out in the valley, which is so similar to King Falls and yet isn’t at all, he realizes that this is the first show he’s done this year that he actually enjoyed. He knows that it’s a luxury to work a job you enjoy. But he didn’t realize how much he missed this particular luxury, how much it sucked to walk into the King Falls station and feel nothing—no excitement, no apprehension.

Before the incident with Frickard, when they were still in their safe little bubble of pretense, seeing Ben would cheer him up. Afterwards, that was gone, too. Ben was there, but Ben was always there.

Kind of a shitty thought, he realizes as he pushes his hands into his pockets, makes his way over to their car. Ben’s car. Parked next to a station they’re broadcasting from because Ben, unlike Sammy, kept his job. Ben’s car is going to take them home tomorrow, to Ben’s apartment, which Ben freely shared with Sammy without Sammy even having to ask.

He hasn’t even paid the guy any rent yet. He was planning to, but it never ended up being a priority.

 _You’re kind of a jackass, Stevens_. It’s not a new thought. He’s spent long stretches of his life being as much of a jackass as he could manage, and Shotgun Sammy wasn’t even the worst of it. But it’s a new thought when it comes to Ben. He never meant to be a jackass to Ben, or meant to take him for granted.

Maybe an apology is in order.

The door of the station goes behind him. There’s steps on the pavement, Ben catching up with him across the parking lot. He heads for the car, throws Sammy a glance across the roof. “Good to go?”

“Sure, just—” — _waiting for you_ , he wants to finish, when suddenly his vision tunnels to a pinpoint.

It’s not a dizzy spell. There’s no tingling in his fingertips, and his head isn’t swimming. It takes him a moment to recognize the darkness, the overpowering entity from his dreams that isn’t meant to show up when he’s awake. It’s enveloping his mind and his vision, closing down on every last glimmer of light.

He grabs the roof of the car, blinks. Or that’s what he thinks he’s doing; he can’t see shit. “Ben.”

There’s a hand on his arm, Ben saying his name. Repeating his name, probably; he thinks he missed the first couple of “Sammy!”-s. Even now, it’s muted and far away, seeping through the roaring in his ears that he didn’t even realize was happening. His senses feel less reliable by the second, all sensory impressions washing away and being replaced by—nothing.

Though it’s not nothing. Not really. This isn’t like having your eyes closed. This is like staring wide-eyed into a darkness so pitch black it might as well not exist. He can feel something reaching for him. It feels more real than anything his senses are picking up on.

“No.” Some part of him remembers what this looks like from the outside, what it _sounds_ like, Cecil on the radio flickering in and out of reality. “I don’t want to—”

_Sammy_

His name. More importantly, the voice that’s speaking it. He makes a sound. The voice gets louder.

_Sammy!_

“Here.” He’s in both realities now; he’s standing next to the car and he’s in this place of absolute darkness. Reaches out. “Jack, I’m here!”

The response isn’t a single voice. All of a sudden, there are countless. They grab and tear, pull him under like the Pacific Ocean if you pick the wrong spot to get your feet wet. He’s in neither reality now, completely surrounded by ruthless things in the dark. They’re unified in their determination, like a mob in a burning building charging for the exists.

He screams. They don’t hear him, of course; this place isn’t made for sound. There’s nothing to grab a hold of, no chance to get out of the way. It’s like he’s a beacon to them, like they want his light because they don’t have any left to guide themselves.

His knees buckle. He hunkers down into a crouch, puts his arms over his head even though he knows it’s pointless. They’re inside of him, and he has no defense. All he can hope for is that he didn’t just inadvertently open another door to hell right where Ben would be the first to be taken.


	10. Chapter 10

Ben hates driving in the dark. In fact, Ben doesn’t love driving in general. It seems stupid to be forced to lug a big hunk of metal anywhere you go. He knows that technically, it makes you faster, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels more like a modern-day spin on a prisoner’s ball and chain.

Driving in the dark is especially stupid. He’s been doing it a lot, though. Kind of comes with the territory when you work shifts in the a.m., when you’re taking care of your mess of a best friend who tends to conjure up emergencies in the middle of the night.

Well. Not really a best friend anymore. Best friends don’t put their mouths on each other’s dicks. They need a better term, though maybe they also don’t. Sammy said Jack’s name, after all.

The day had been going too well to just keep on going like that. When Sammy started flickering, it took all Ben had not to lose it. No, he wanted to scream, no you fucking don’t. You don’t fucking leave him, not like this.

Then Sammy said Jack’s name, and Ben went from angry to nauseous in two seconds flat. It sounded like Sammy was speaking _to_ Jack, speaking to someone lost in the Void. Speaking to someone Ben had been gung-ho to bring back until he realized that Jack maybe wasn’t what Sammy needed the most. Until he realized that the thing Sammy needed the most could maybe be found much closer to home.

Except now Sammy’s speaking to Jack, now Sammy’s collapsing in parking lots because Jack’s doing things to his head that don’t seem nice, don’t seem loving or caring or good. Ben’s so fucking confused, but there wasn’t any time to figure anything out. Sammy came back to himself quickly enough, looked at Ben with sharp eyes, and demanded to be taken back to King Falls.

Why, Ben wanted to ask. For the first time in his life, going back to the Falls seemed like a terrible idea. There’s a whole country out there. They could have taken the road east out of town, gone to see Yellowstone, the Badlands. Chicago, maybe; he’s heard it’s got a great theatre scene. Go far, far away from the mysteries of King Falls, from the Devil’s Doorstep. From whatever it is that’s happening with Jack. It’ll happen with or without them. For once in his life, Ben would have liked to take the road of caution and let it happen without them.

But that’s not in the cards. They’re already back across the state line, minutes out from Big Pine hospital. That’s where Troy told Sammy to come, where Lily texted Sammy to show his face. Ben hasn’t received any texts or calls. He’s not part of the Jack Wright club, he’s not fucking invited to the big homecoming parade. If that’s what this is. Nobody’s said as much, but it has to be. Sammy’s face, Lily’s text. The tremor in Troy’s voice through the speaker of Sammy’s phone. Jack’s back, Ben knows it in his gut. He’s sort of scaring himself with how much he hates the idea.

There’s a turn, and he’s meant to go left, where a gas station in a few hundred feet marks the Big Pine city limits. He turns the wheel, but instead of staying on the road, he swerves, pulls over onto the shoulder. Hits the brake sharply enough to make his seatbelt jerk. Gravel spatters off the wheels and against the sides of the car.

“Ben.” Sammy sounds tense as hell. He hasn’t spoken more than two goddamn words the entire drive, not to Ben. Nothing about what happened in the parking lot, what the hell’s happening in King Falls. Not a goddamn word about Jack.

Ben kills the engine, pulls the keys off. Chucks them into Sammy’s lap. “You’re gonna have to drive yourself the rest of the way. I’m outta here.”

He gets out while Sammy’s still protesting, slams the door and starts walking. He can hear boots on gravel, but that might just be Sammy getting into the driver’s seat. There’s a priority here, and it’s not Ben. He’s not gonna delude himself about that.

“Will you stop!”

A hand on his shoulder startles him. He turns around, shoves Sammy’s arm away. “Get off me!”

Sammy looks wide-eyed and worried and _tired_. He looks so fucking tired, and he didn’t when they were doing the show earlier tonight. He was happy during the show, or the closest Ben’s seen him in months. “This is bullshit,” he hears himself say. His voice isn’t steady, but he doesn’t care. “You gotta go see Jack, and I get that, but Sammy, I’m not gonna be the one to take you there. That’s not—that’s not in me.”

“We don’t even know if this is Jack.”

Of course Sammy would say that. It’s Tim Jensen all over again. Without photographic evidence or DNA testing, Sammy’s not going to believe that person they’re on their way to seeing genuinely is Jack Wright. It’s one of the most Sammy Stevens things Sammy’s ever said, and before Ben can stop himself, he’s slammed his palms into Sammy’s chest.

“Hey!”

“Of course it is!” Ben shouts over Sammy’s protest. “I can feel it, Sammy, I feel it in my heart, and you—you fucking passed out over it, how can you pretend it’s not happening?”

“I’m not pretending— _Jesus_!” Sammy’s shaky now, his voice doing that thing that makes Ben feel helpless and pissed off and panicky all at the same time. “Can we just—dial it back a notch? I don’t know what’s happening, _you_ don’t know, so can we just—”

“I know.” He’s calm all of a sudden, that misleading sort of calm that happens whenever he’s seconds away from losing his grip. He takes a step back. “I told you, I know. I need you to leave.”

“What?”

“I said, I need you to leave. Get in the car, drive into Big Pine, go see your fucking fiancé. Get away from me.”

“Ben—”

He crouches down, grabs a handful of gravel. Gets some dirt and dust, as well as one pebble big enough to lob at Sammy. “I said, get the fuck out of here!”

The pebble’s the size of a small cherry, nothing that will do any damage. Sammy’s still so goddamn startled, yelps and stumbles back. “Jesus!”

“Keep walking, or I swear to God I’ll find one big enough to hurt.”

“For Christ’s sake—”

“I am not fucking kidding, Sammy, I’ll—” The air gets stuck in his throat, and he looks around for a proper rock, a brick. Anything. He is so fucking _done_.

“Okay.” Sammy takes a step back. Maybe he’s finally getting it. “Okay, Ben, I’ll—I don’t— _shit_.”

“Get _out_!”

He screams it loud enough to make it echo between the mountains. It rings in his ears, sends a bright-hot stab through his head. It’s like a lance piercing through his skull from the back to the front, makes his senses go cloudy for a second. Sammy’s saying something, babbling something about being sorry and that Ben should call a cab and that Ben should _calm down_ , but it’s not tracking.

Eventually there’s the sound of boots on gravel, footsteps moving away. It’s what he wanted, but it still feels like the end of the world. His chest hurts, his entire body hurts. The car comes to life, red tail lights flashing. Ben hitches a breath, realizes he’s crying. He can’t fucking draw any air.

As the car pulls away, he sinks down by the side of the road, digs his fingers into the shoulder and wishes fucking Shotgun Sammy Stevens had never come to King Falls.

\------

All the way to Big Pine hospital, Sammy tries to figure out if he should’ve left the car.

Of course he should have, a part of him thinks. Ben needs some way to get home. No, another part of him says. Ben was in no state to drive. He’ll be safer calling a cab. Calling a cab in Big Pine is a bigger production than you’d imagine, comes the rebuttal. It depends on availability and mobile coverage and having the correct numbers saved in your phone, which Ben might not. Turning around is the best course of action.

Ben didn’t want you there, the second part points out. He made that very, very clear.

At that point, there’s a brief breakdown of clear thinking, emotions trying to break through that ask _why_ and _what the hell happened_. Deeper ones that speak of grief and loss and a choice he doesn’t think he can make. He manages to quell them before they can drag out the dreaded question of the moment— _what will you do if this really is Jack having come back from the Void?_ —and thinks about Ben again. About how he should’ve left the car, because Ben needs a way to get home.

He’s still going around in circles by the time he pulls into the hospital parking lot. He feels like he’s wearing blinders, can’t take in anything beyond what’s right in front of him. There’s an aborted squeal of tires as he heads across the pedestrian crosswalk. He doesn’t realize it’s got anything to do with him until he notices the beat-up truck that’s stopped short right next to the crossing and sits there with angrily vibrating headlights.

He raises a hand, sorry. Makes his way into the lobby.

Three people almost bump into him before he stops and takes a look around. The place is crowded. He hasn’t been here often, but when he has, it was during normal hospital operating hours—during a time when you’d expect the place to be busiest.

He’s never seen it like this, though. Groups of four or five are gathered around the coffee vending machines against the back wall, people stand in clan-like clumps near the windows overlooking the parking lot. The sofas and chairs in the waiting area are overflowing with people sitting, standing, crouching on the floor. There’s constant movement, people crossing the lobby to head to the bathrooms, to the elevators, to go outside for a smoke, to join the coffee queue. There’s a line at the reception desk, where two tired members of staff are trying to answer questions.

Nobody’s running or shouting, nobody’s being pushy. Everyone here just seems to be waiting. It’s creepy as hell.

“Excuse me.” Sammy takes the arm of a guy passing by. The guy stops, cigarette in hand, and glances up.

“Yes?”

He’s Hatchenhaw, Sammy realizes. Most of the folks waiting seem to be. He clears his throat. “What—do you know what’s going on?”

The guy glances over at the desk, shrugs. “We’re still waiting. I think I heard someone say that they’ve brought everyone in by now.”

“Everyone—brought them in from where?”

“The camp grounds.” The guy frowns. “You’re here because of a missing person, right?”

“I—” — _don’t know_ , a voice in his head insists. _I don’t fucking know anything_.

His silence earns him a raised eyebrow. “They found a large group of missing persons up at the camp grounds earlier tonight.” The guy waves a hand at the people gathered in the lobby. “That’s why most of us are here. If you’re here for something else, consider coming back tomorrow. I don’t think the hospital’s dealing with much else tonight.”

“Right.” He realizes he’s still holding on to the man’s arm. Lets go and takes a step back. “Thanks, man.”

The guy gives him a once-over and a nod, heads off towards the exit. The lobby’s incredibly noisy, Sammy realizes all of a sudden, voices echoing off the high walls and ringing in his ears. Making his head hurt.

He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath. Joins the queue at the reception desk.

The people in front of him all ask the same question. They all have a name, utter it with trepidation. They all want to know if that name is on the list, if the person was found. If they can see them, and when, and where. Some are sent to the elevators, others to the waiting area. There’s one man who gets a headshake, a sympathetic face, and a promise of a call.

As the man walks off, Sammy looks after him. Spends a few seconds feeling like he’s going to be sick all over the polished floor. He might do it just to break the spell of frozen calm that’s been cast over this place, this crowd of people who all must be feeling what he’s feeling—that they’re on the edge of a precipice, at a fork in the road. No matter what happens here, it’s going to change everything.

“Sir? Excuse me. How may I help?”

Right. He’s reached the end of the queue, has come face to face with one of the tired hospital staffers. The woman who’s smiling at him looks forty-five going on sixty, dark bags under her eyes, tense lines around her mouth. Spending all night telling people whether or not they’re going to get to see their loved ones again would do that to you.

“Jack.” He says the name before he thinks about it, and once he’s said it, it’s easier. Clears his throat, collects himself. “I’m here for Jack Wright. W-R-I-G-H-T. Was he found?”

The keyboard clicks under her fingers. “I’ve got him here,” she says, puts a finger against the screen. “He was one of the first they brought in. Room 825.”

Just like that. It’s so goddamn anti-climactic that Sammy stays rooted to the floor, stares at her and waits for the fireworks. Something’s gotta happen, right? Room 825, that can’t be it.

“The elevators are right over there.” She points a finger towards the left. “We have a lot of people going up and down, but we ask you not to overcrowd the stairs, and not to use the staff elevators. I’ll need your name for the log, please.”

Sammy gives it to her. If she recognizes it—and she might; she works night shifts at a hospital reception desk; she’s prime target audience for late night AM radio shows—she’s not letting on. He queues for the elevator, gets on, and stands in a corner of the cabin. His thoughts are now stuck in a new loop of wondering if the staffer knew him. If she knew about Jack from listening to the show. If she did, she’d expect him to be overjoyed, wouldn’t she? Anyone would.

Ben would. Ben’s expecting him to run right back into Jack’s arms. That’s why he was angry, that’s why he told him to leave. The thought makes his chest hurt, makes his knees feel wobbly. He leans against the wall, digs his phone from his pocket. He’s not sure what he means to do. He could give Ben a call, but Ben’s not going to pick up, is he?

The elevator jerks to a stop before he can make a decision. The doors rattle open, and this is floor number eight, this is where he needs to get off. Sammy wanders past the nurse’s desk, scans the room numbers on the wall. 825 is all the way in the back, a plain white door that’s firmly closed shut.

He’s still wondering if he’ll be able to make himself open it when he’s already turning the knob.

It’s a small room, just a single bed surrounded by peach-colored walls. The window faces east, shows a sky bleeding the reds and yellows of dawn into each other. The bed’s empty, untouched white sheets with a stack of towels sitting on top. His stomach twists; is it the wrong room? Maybe Jack’s not even here, maybe the staffer made a mistake—

“Sammy!”

That’s his name, said in a voice he’s heard say it a million times. There’s more to the room than the bed; there’s a table along the wall opposite. Two chairs. One of them holds Lily, hair twisted up in the kind of untidy bun that happens when you just don’t have the time to do better. The other one’s just been abandoned by the man crossing the room towards him.

He looks exactly the same. Hair’s the same, smile’s the same. Sammy even remembers the t-shirt—grey with a print of the Grand Canyon; Jack bought it when they stopped there years ago on their road trip from Orlando to L.A. He throws his arms around Sammy, and Sammy remembers that, too—broad shoulders, solid arms, a wide chest against his own, narrower one. It’s impossible to stay mad when you’re being hugged like that.

Sammy’s not mad, though. Sammy couldn’t say what he is. Frozen, maybe. Eventually, he remembers to raise his hands, puts them against the small of Jack’s back. The hug continues for a little while longer, until Jack eventually pulls back.

“Hey.” He sounds concerned. He _looks_ concerned. There really isn’t a single thing that’s different about him, and it’s weird. It’s been three years. “Sammy, you okay?”

“I’m—” — _fine_. The word catches in his throat. There’s heat gathering in the corners of his eyes, under his lids, in the back of his throat. He can feel Jack’s fingers trail over the side of his neck, against the side of his face as Jack wipes a thumb over his cheekbone. The touch feels unbearable, so he twists away. Takes a step back.

Jack just stands there. As familiar as he looks, he feels like a stranger. Like someone’s Sammy never met—or maybe more like someone who’s never met Sammy. Not the version of Sammy who lives in King Falls.

“I’m sorry.” He’s not sure what exactly he’s apologizing for. The list goes on, but guilt may just be the worst reason for being here. “I can’t—”

“Stevens. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

That’s Lily. She’s on her feet, coming up besides Jack. She’s shorter, more narrowly built, but between the two, she’s the more terrifying one.

Jack puts a hand on her shoulder. “Stay out of this, Lil.”

“Like hell I will.” She shrugs him off, steps closer. Snaps her fingers in front of Sammy’s face, makes him jump. “Snap out of it, for Christ’s sake. Jack’s right here, you can quit being a fucking drama queen now.”

“I’m not a fucking— _Jesus_.” Now he’s mad, or starting to get there, snatches of emotion penetrating the haze. “Back off. You don’t—”

“What, I don’t get it? I could never understand what you’re going through? I’m _right here_ , motherfucker!”

There’s a blaze in her eyes hiding something deeper, and Sammy knows she’s holding herself together with spit and glue just like he is. He takes a deep breath, looks at Jack. “I can’t put into words how glad I am to see you alive.” His voice is trembling, but it’s not cracking or failing. Under the circumstances, he’ll consider it a win. “I don’t know what happened to you, and—I want to know. I care, please don’t think I don’t. But—” Now his voice gives out. He swallows, sucks a breath into a chest that feels too tight to be of any use. “I can’t be here, Jack. I’m sorry.”

“Stevens, I swear to God—”

“Lily!” Jack sounds shaken; he _looks_ shaken, too much white in his eyes as he takes Lily by the shoulder. Pulls her back. “Just—leave him alone, Jesus Christ! Sammy—”

But Sammy just shakes his head. He didn’t make it very far into the room, no more than a few steps, so all he has to do is reach behind himself to find the doorknob. “I’m sorry, Jack. I gotta go.”

Lily shouts something—several somethings, in fact, but they’re muffled soon enough when the door closes on Room 825. Sammy makes his way down the corridor, barely takes note of his surroundings.

Looks like he can make a choice. It may have killed something inside of him, but there’s a chance it’s been dead a long time, anyway.

\------

Ben ends up calling his mom to pick him up.

He hates that she’s his go-to; it makes him feel all of sixteen years old. But when Betty Arnold’s well-loved Subaru pulls up, he almost starts crying all over again, this time from relief.

He asks her to skip the questions, and because she’s a great mom who’s known him for thirty-two years, she does. Well, she does short of asking if this is about Emily. The question makes something stick in his chest, so he has to lean forward, put his head between his knees until he can breathe again.

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know _anything_. And now she never will, because Sammy’s back with Jack, and why would Ben tell her anything if he doesn’t absolutely have to? That thought isn’t him, it’s not the son Betty Arnold raised. But it makes so much sense. So much more sense than broaching a subject with this many emotional pitfalls for a mere FYI.

Suddenly, he understands Sammy’s silence about Jack that much better, and it makes him feel that much worse, so he leans his head against the window and doesn’t say anything until they pull into the driveway of Betty’s house.

His childhood room has changed since he moved out, except it really hasn’t. That’s still the bed he slept in when he was in high school, except now it’s a guest bed with a paisley pattern comforter and too many pillows. The stuff he left behind is still here, it’s just been transferred into boxes to make way for—what, he doesn’t even know. Sheets, probably. Seems like any spare room dresser, after a certain amount of time, its drawers will inevitably fill up with sheets.

As he sits on the bed to pull off his socks, dumps his jeans on the floor because this is the room he inhabited as a teenager and old habits die hard, he feels one hell of a lot like he’s back on one of his countless days of high school Armageddon. Maybe today’s the day Danny Zuko fell off the stage, maybe it’s the day his tongue slipped and he asked Pete Myers if he wanted to share his Reeses Penis. He’s been telling himself that life had gotten better, that the endless procession of rejection and humiliation had finally run its course. But sitting here, surrounded by memories from decades ago that blend seamlessly with what happened earlier, he realizes what a load of bullshit that is.

It’s never going to get better. He peaked in middle school. It’s time he fucking accepted that.

When he crawls under the sheets, he tries not to think about how there’s another thing about Sammy that suddenly makes a lot more sense—the urge to go to sleep in the middle of the day, make all your problems disappear for a while. Ben can’t deny that it sounds damn tempting. To be fair, maybe it’s just that he’s wiped. There’s something about a proper rage fit that’ll do that to you.

He’s startled awake by the doorbell some time later.

Could be a package delivery. Or maybe a friend; Betty has those. Either way, it’s nothing he’s going to get out of bed for. Muffled voices float up the stairs, and he tries to block them out until there’s a particularly clear sound that makes him freeze up and listen.

Someone said his name. Someone said his name in a male voice. A familiar voice.

Ben pushes the sheets aside, fishes for his jeans over the edge of the bed.

His mother’s house is small enough, not much bigger than his own apartment. The stairs twist only at the very bottom, otherwise run parallel to the hallway leading up to the front door. Ben stands barefoot on the top landing carpet with his back to the wall, unnoticeable to the people downstairs.

“... he wasn’t there. I figured he might’ve come here.”

That’s definitely Sammy. Ben’s chest clenches, and he closes his eyes. He read somewhere that closing your eyes improves your sense of hearing.

“He’s upstairs, but I think he’s asleep. He wasn’t—he didn’t seem too well. Exhausted, at the very least. Weren’t you boys doing that show in Montana?”

“Idaho. We—”

“I’m awake.” He says it before he can think about it. Ignores his chest tightening as he pushes off the wall, comes to stand at the top of the stairs. His mother’s peering up. He gives her a tight smile. “It’s fine. Send him up.”

He makes a hasty retreat into his room, sits on the bed and pulls his knees to his chest. There are footsteps on the stairs. He tries to gauge if they’re light or heavy, but he never knew what that was even supposed to mean. They’re _footsteps_.

There’s only one reason for Sammy to be here, and that’s to say goodbye. Ben supposes it’s kind of nice that Sammy took the time. It makes him feel like his heart is being ripped out of his chest, but still. It’s kind of nice that Sammy didn’t decide on a so-called clean break.

He knocks before he comes in, which is dumb. Ben pulls his knees up tighter and says nothing.

When Sammy finally steps through the door, he looks exactly the same. It’s not surprising, considering it’s only been a few hours. It feels entirely wrong, though. This is what Sammy looked like when Ben kissed him at that stupid pirate golf course—same shirt, same pants, same hair. It makes it really hard to remember that kissing’s not allowed anymore, makes his eyes feel prickly and his nose clogged up.

Sammy pulls the door shut with a soft click. “Hey.”

“I don’t wanna talk to you.” He didn’t mean to say it, but it’s the truth. He doesn’t want to talk to Sammy, he _can’t_ talk to Sammy. They haven’t said more than two words, but this already feels worse than anything probably ever has in the entirety of human history.

Sammy stops in his tracks halfway across the room, but only for long enough to find Ben’s eyes. It’s almost like a challenge, the way he seeks Ben out and takes another step. “I didn’t speak to Jack, Ben.”

Ben’s teeth clench. He hates that name. “What?”

Sammy’s reached the bed now, perches on the edge. It’s a bit too close for comfort, except for real comfort, it’s not anywhere close enough.

“I didn’t speak to Jack. I went to see him, but—” Sammy stalls out. There are a lot of emotions happening behind his eyes. Sammy likes to pretend he doesn’t have any, but Ben knows where to look.

A thought crosses his mind, makes his heart clench. “Does he not remember you?”

No matter how he feels about Sammy going back to Jack, this is not something he’d ever hope for. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

But Sammy’s shaking his head. “He remembers me just fine. He’s—perfectly fine. Exactly the same.”

There’s more. Sammy’s dancing around something he doesn’t want to say. If there’s anything Sammy’s good at, it’s not saying things.

Ben’s lips thin out. “What?”

“He was wearing the same damn clothes, Ben. It’s like he just skipped the time between then and now, stepped into a time machine and just—” Sammy waves a hand, indicating what Ben assumes is meant to be time travel.

He’s not sure what he’s expected to say.

Sammy drops his hands, works his jaw like he’s searching for words. Looks off to the side and swears under his breath.

This is just pissing Ben off now.

“Look,” he says, surprised to hear the anger in his voice. “I’m not going to talk you through the Jack thing. I thought I’d made it pretty clear, I’m out. I know I said I’d take your shit, but I guess I lied. I’m not going to do this to—”

Sammy moves closer without warning. Ben’s got his knees up, and it’s a pretty good protective wall, but it also means he can’t scramble away quickly enough when Sammy leans in, takes the sides of his face. He tries to twist away, but then Sammy’s lips are right there, and kissing them just makes a lot of sense.

It feels too real to be true. If this turns out to be something other than it feels like, it’ll be the last straw. He’ll lose it for good. Sammy’s touch is soft, but he doesn’t want soft, so he gets his knees under himself, grabs Sammy by the shoulders, and bites his lip.

Sammy makes a strangled sound, rendered more of a splutter because his lip is trapped between Ben’s teeth. Ben sucks on it, lets off only to stick his tongue into Sammy’s mouth. He wraps his arms tightly around Sammy so that their bodies are pressed together, deepens the kiss. _You’re mine_ , he wants to say. _Mine, and I’m not fucking sharing_.

Sammy goes along with it. Sammy doesn’t seem averse at all, his body pliant against Ben’s, his lips open. He uses some teeth himself, sharp pressure against Ben’s skin. It makes Ben shudder, and suddenly this is too much. He has to break the kiss, tightens his arms around Sammy and hides his face in the crook of Sammy’s neck.

Sammy’s arms settle around him, heavy and reassuring. His palm slides down the length of Ben’s back. He’s weighing their bodies back and forth. It’s the smallest movement, but it helps lessen the pressure in Ben’s chest.

It’s a while before either of them speaks.

“Ben, I’m so sorry.” Sammy’s voice is quiet. He sounds exhausted, so Ben tightens the embrace. “I don’t mean to keep doing this to you. It’s all been such a mess, and I’m—I was really confused. But I’m not anymore. I’m sure now.”

Ben holds very still, but Sammy remains silent. “Sure of what?”

Sammy trembles a little, and that doesn’t seem like he’s sure at all. He takes a breath, though, steadies himself. “Jack’s back. But that doesn’t change how I feel, how I think I’ve felt for a while. I’m glad he’s back, I’m—I can’t even say how relieved I am, but I don’t want to—” Sammy’s voice wavers. He pulls back until Ben meets his eyes. “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here. With you.”

Ben searches Sammy’s face, the lines around his eyes and mouth, the hint of stubble on his jaw. It’s more than a hint, really; it’s been a while since they’ve had a chance to shave. Not that Ben needs to on a daily basis, but Sammy does. Sammy gives you beard burn when you kiss him too late in the day.

“I want you to stay here with me, too.” He cups his palms against the joints of Sammy’s neck and shoulders, rests his thumbs along the muscle there. “But—it’s gotta—” His voice catches, so he pauses, takes a breath. “I gotta be enough for you. I can’t be more than I’ve been, Sammy, I’m just—this is all I’ve got. And sometimes it’s enough, but sometimes it’s—sometimes you walk away, anyway. I can’t—”

“Ben.” Sammy’s doing that thing with his voice that makes Ben want to curl up in his arms and never be anywhere else. It’s fucking unfair to pull that out right now. He closes his mouth, bites the inside of his lip.

“You’re never not enough.” Sammy’s eyes are as soft as his tone. “That’s not—” He pauses, seems to think. “I’ve been alone all my life,” he says eventually. “I’ve dealt with shit—on my own. And I don’t want it to be like that, but—it’s what I know, so if I walk away from you—it’s not because you’re not enough.”

“I don’t care why you do it!” That’s the worst answer Sammy could’ve given. As close as they are, Ben doesn’t get a lot of momentum behind it as he shoves his palms against Sammy’s shoulders. “I care _that_ you do it! I don’t want you to—”

Sammy’s knocked off-balance, but catches himself and grabs Ben’s wrists. It’s startling, makes him fall silent.

“If I walk away, it’s not because you’re not enough,” Sammy says again, slow and insistent. “It also doesn’t mean that I won’t come back.”

Ben’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“When I ‘walk away’, as you call it—I might just be trying to get my head right, Ben. Think about things without you telling me what to think. You’re kind of intense, dude. You don’t always leave much space for other people.”

That’s a suggestion he hadn’t considered before. He’ll admit, it makes a certain amount of sense. But— “How am I meant to know the difference?” He narrows his eyes. “It’s not always just that. Don’t try to tell me that you quitting the show was you ‘trying to get your head right’. That’s bullshit at best and revisionism at worst.”

“It wasn’t.” Sammy takes Ben’s hand. Ben’s not sure what his plan is until he guides it up, presses a tender kiss to the inside of Ben’s wrist. Finds Ben’s eyes again, and his voice is back to being soft and so fucking irresistible. “It’s gonna be a learning curve. For me, and for you. What I’m trying to say is that I’m sure that I wanna go through it with you. And that I hope that you want that, too.”

It’s as easy as that. It’s Sammy asking if he’s all in. They’ve been here before, roles reversed, except Ben’s not going to have to agree sight unseen. He’s pretty sure he’s seen it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly. And this time Sammy has, too.

Maybe it’s not so bad that it happened the way it did—messy as hell, painful as hell. Like this, at least neither of them will be laboring under any illusions. Sammy for sure isn’t, and he’s still making the offer.

Ben lets out a laugh, startles himself with it. There’s a bubbly feeling in his chest, something big trying to break out. The next best thing is to throw his arms around Sammy, hug him close and tight so he’ll be able to feel Ben vigorously nodding his head.

“I want to, Sammy. Jesus. I thought you’d never ask.”


	11. Chapter 11

They go to sleep, because neither of them has the stamina for a real all-nighter anymore. Eventually, though, the need for breakfast—or lunch, or brunch, or whatever you want to call food that you eat after getting up past noon—drives them out of the house.

Sammy would’ve just taken Betty up on the offer of homemade pancakes, but Ben seems disinclined, so they end up at Rose’s.

For obvious reasons, Sammy’s been less than welcome there. He momentarily forgets and follows muscle memory to their accustomed booth. Rose comes over immediately, too keen to quiz them on the latest town events to give them the cold shoulder. It gives Sammy reason to hope that his unspoken exile from the place is lifted.

They aren’t able to answer many of Rose’s questions, though, and end up being the ones getting the scoop from her. Turns out that shortly after midnight last night, Deputy Lynch received reports of a large group of people milling about at the Perdition Woods campgrounds. Upon investigation, she found a number of them matching descriptions in ongoing missing persons reports, which prompted her to initiate a thorough identity processing procedure.

“Your buddy Troy volunteered ‘n all,” Rose says, her poised pen on the order pad all but forgotten. “They brought ‘em all down to the new auditorium, set up chairs and had a whole thing with calling numbers ‘n pulling files off of some federal police network cloud thing. You should ask him!”

Once she’s off to the kitchen, they put Ben’s phone on speaker and place an arguably ill-timed call to Troy. After all, Troy just came off of his own all-nighter, but Sammy doesn’t think of that until Troy slurs a sleep-befuddled “Hello?” down the line.

He wakes up enough to confirm Rose’s story, and adds an apology for not being in touch sooner. “But I figured you’d get the whole story from Jack, anyway. You must be over the moon, Sammy, I’m so damn happy for you.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

Troy’s pretty good when it comes to respecting personal business, so he doesn’t question the evasive reply. Instead, he moves on to sharing a first-hand account of the events in the King Falls auditorium.

“It was a whole slew of people, must’ve been a headcount of something like seventy or more. All missing persons, except for a handful. Those probably just never got reported. And not just recent ones! One lady, she’d been reported missing in June of 1956. Didn’t look a day older than twenty-nine, and _damn_ was she out of sorts about the computers and phones. Cars, too! She must’ve felt like she’d stumbled into Star Trek. Except she didn’t know Star Trek, neither!”

“Fucking wild,” Ben comments.

Besides time travelers from the fifties, another challenge the impromptu operation at the King Falls auditorium faced was that a large number of the formerly missing persons were members of the Hatchenhaw nation. Troy expresses his vocal dismay at the lack of routine communication channels between the Sheriff Department and the Hatchenhaw tribal government, and vows to improve it should he be elected Sheriff in November.

“We’re neighbors, for Christ’s sake. We should at least have each other’s damn phone numbers in case of an emergency.”

“Absolutely. Say, Troy—” Sammy leans forward to get closer to the phone’s microphone. “Has there been any investigation into where all these people suddenly came from?”

Troy makes a sound that’s somewhere between a splutter and a sigh. “Can’t say that there has been, Sammy. I’m just volunteering, right, I’m not officially reinstated. They just didn’t have the manpower to _not_ let me do the job I’m trained in, even if they wouldn’t give it back to me officially. But everyone’s been so busy just figuring out who it is that showed back up, nobody’s done a lot of looking into where they showed up from.”

Sammy exchanges a glance with Ben, who widens his eyes. “It’s gotta be the Void, right? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I agree, li’l buddy.” Troy lets out a barely concealed yawn. “Though Sammy, why don’t you just ask Jack? You’ve got crown witness access, after all. If’n you ain’t got more important things to talk about, which I’m sure you do.”

“Right.” Sammy, only too aware of Ben’s eyes on him, takes care not to look up. “I guess we do.”

He manages to put Jack out of his mind again for the rest of the afternoon, which sees them returning to Ben’s apartment— _their_ apartment, Sammy reminds himself; he should start thinking of it as theirs. It offers a privacy they know to make good use of when Ben surprises Sammy by climbing into the shower with him. They relocate to the bedroom before long, spend a good part of the afternoon getting to know each other’s likes and dislikes. Ben, while lacking practical experience, turns out to have put quite a bit of thought into what he might want from an encounter with a guy. Sammy finds he’s happy to help out.

They doze off eventually, until Sammy’s phone brings them back to awareness by buzzing a message notification.

It buzzes twice more before Sammy presses an apologetic kiss to Ben’s temple, rolls onto his back to check the lock screen. Three messages from an unknown number await.

_New phone. Who dis?_

Immediately after: _Dumb joke. Sorry. It’s Jack’s new phone._

And a couple of minutes later: _Can we talk?_

“What is it?”

Ben sounds wary. Sammy hands him the phone, watches his face go through a range of expressions and eventually settle on a lip-biting frown as he hands the phone back.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Talk to him.” Sammy scrolls through the messages again, imagines Jack sitting wherever he is now, staring at his new phone and waiting for an answer. “I owe him that.”

An arm slides around his waist, Ben’s head coming to rest on Sammy’s chest. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Ben sounds petulant, maybe even a little scared. Sammy wraps an arm around him, fingertips stroking over the skin between Ben’s shoulder blades. “I want to. But you don’t have to worry. We talked about this, right?”

“You’ll come back.” Ben’s attempting sincerity, but he can’t help a deprecating undertone. Sammy hugs him a little closer, presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Exactly.” And then, because he’s warm and safe, and because he’s already said it, just not in so many words, he adds, “I love you.”

The effect is immediate. Tension bleeds out of Ben’s back, his body against Sammy’s side relaxes. He lets out something between a small laugh and a sigh, shoves his face into Sammy’s shoulder. “I love you, too, man.”

He gives them a few more minutes before he picks up the phone and replies to Jack. They agree to meet at the Big Pine equivalent of Rose’s, a place that goes by the name of Barbara’s.

As he climbs out of bed, he throws a glance over his shoulder.

“Can I borrow your car?”

Ben grimaces. “You really need a new one.”

“That I do. But for now—”

“Keys are on the kitchen counter.”

“Thanks, dude.”

Sammy’s pretty sure there’s a federal blueprint somewhere that’s enforced any time a small town American diner is being outfitted. Barbara’s looks so much like Rose’s, if it weren’t for the pine green seat covers instead of rust red ones, you wouldn’t know the difference.

Jack’s in one of the booths along the back wall. He’s got a cup of coffee in front of him, a pot of it sitting next to his elbow. Across from him, there’s a second mug, presumably intended for Sammy.

He’s pretty confident he’s not gonna get stood up, then. Or he’s trying to reassure himself.

Jack spots Sammy before he’s even halfway across the room, so there’s a whole half-diner stretch of awkward uncertainty about how to greet each other. Jack finally decides to get to his feet, but he’s only halfway out of the booth when Sammy slides into the seat opposite.

He doesn’t want to hurt any feelings, but right now, he wants to be touched even less.

The waiter stops by to take their orders, interrupts Jack’s crestfallen reaction. Jack sits back down, asks for another pot of coffee. The waiter’s mouth curves down, but he takes the order without comment and disappears.

Sammy wraps his fingers around his mug, which is pleasantly warm. “Hey, Jack.”

“Sammy.” Jack’s hands settle on the table. He seems tempted to reach out, but doesn’t.

He’s not wearing the Grand Canyon t-shirt anymore. His current shirt is gray and reassuringly unfamiliar.

“They let you out of the hospital, then?”

“Yeah.” Jack nods, shifts, and crosses his arms in a gesture of defense that Sammy remembers all too well. “There wasn’t anything wrong with me. I think they just sent everyone to the hospital because they didn’t know where else to put them.”

“It was a lot of people. What—” His voice snags. It’s surprising; he’s been feeling unexpectedly calm so far. The emotions are there, though, and the question he’s asking is making them spike. “What actually happened?”

Jack laughs. He has a nice laugh, friendly and cheerful, but this is not that laugh. “What actually happened when, Sammy?” It’s like he can’t sit still, leans forward and puts his elbows on the table. Prompts Sammy to pull back. “What happened when I was taken? When I was—wherever I was? Or when I came back?”

Sammy chews on his lip, helpless to realize that he’s the one who has his arms crossed now. Whatever this is, it feels like they’re a couple of six-shooters away from a Mexican standoff. “The latter. I mean—” He pauses. Takes a moment. “All of it. But let’s start with the latter. How did you come back?”

“I have no idea.”

Jack deflates, his shoulders dropping. A ray of evening sunlight falls through the window and catches his profile. Sammy’s momentarily distracted. There’s nothing about Jack he doesn’t remember—no additional lines on his face, no wrinkles on his forehead. He knows he himself amassed plenty over the last three years. Jack, though—Jack’s exactly the same.

“The Void—it’s what Debbie calls it, so I guess I’ll call it that, too.” Jack’s staring at his hands, rubbing a thumb along the back of his index finger. “It’s like a dream. Not even a bad one, just—time passes in dreams, right?” He looks up, finds Sammy’s eyes. He seems to be looking for confirmation, so Sammy nods. Sure, time passes in dreams.

“Right.” Jack seems reassured. “But it doesn’t really pass. You wake up, and it’s not that much later. It’s a few hours. Half a day, maybe, if you’re pushing it. You may have lived through several years in your dream, but in reality, it’s been like six hours.”

Sammy’s not sure where this is going, but Jack doesn’t seem to need his input.

“It feels like this, coming back—it feels like it should be like that. Time passed in the Void, but not really. It was dream time. It wasn’t meant to pass in real time, too.” Jack looks up. “It feels like I just woke up, man. Dreams don’t end, right? They just stop, and then you’re awake. That’s what this feels like.”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

Sammy can feel his heart pounding in his chest, can feel heat rise in his cheeks. He’s angry all of a sudden, terribly and inexplicably.

Jack notices, of course. His eyes flit to the side. “No. I know it wasn’t, Sammy—Jesus.” He drags a hand down his face. “All I’m trying to say is that I don’t have a good story of how I came back. I know that I was in the Void, and I know that people—they came and went, Sammy. They were there and weren’t there at the same time, it’s like the place is out of sync, or something. There was this guy called Walt—”

“I know him.” Sammy says it without thinking, bites the side of his tongue as Jack looks up in surprise. “He was taken. Not long ago, like a month, maybe. He was in the Void with you?”

Jack nods. “I think he’s the one who brought us back. He—knew things. He knew how that place worked, and—he found a way out. It’s like he knew which book to pull to make the bookcase spin and catapult us back to reality.”

“You were trapped in Dracula’s mansion?”

Jack’s eyes narrow. “Smartass.”

Jack’s annoyance breaks some tension, loosens the tight hold Sammy has on the thing in his chest that’s trying to overtake his body. He looks down, takes a couple of measured breaths.

“Did he get out?”

“Who?”

_Come on, Jack_. “Walt. Did Walt come back alive?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so. I saw him at the hospital. Tall guy, late middle-aged. Didn’t say much.”

Sammy crosses his arms more tightly, digs his fingers into his sides. Tries to keep a hold of himself, because he’s in public, and he’s with Jack, who has no idea why Sammy would give two shits about some random guy living or dying.

The relief is paralyzing, though, ties his breath until he leans forward, puts his face in his hands.

Walt’s alive. Sammy did not get him killed; Walt is alive and presumably back with his family.

Walt’s the reason everyone’s back with their families. He brought them all home.

“Sammy?” Jack sounds uncertain. “Hey, you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He lowers his hands, puts them on the table in front of him. Keeps his eyes carefully downcast. “I just—I liked Walt. Like him. I’m glad he’s alive.”

“Right.” Jack’s voice is pitched a little higher than normal, teeters into petulant as he continues. “Is he the new boyfriend, then?”

It takes Sammy a moment to process that. When he has, something inside of him grows cold. He looks up. “What?”

Jack’s sitting there, chewing his lip, upset and defensive. “Lily says that’s why you’re being like this. You’ve got someone new.”

Lily. Of course. It takes a lot not to just get up and walk out. Instead, Sammy tightens his jaw, focuses on a grease spot on the table until he can speak without shouting.

“Being like what?” He finds Jack’s eyes. “What am I being like?”

“Like that!” Jack waves a hand, blinks away a brightness in his eyes. “It’s like you’re angry at me for coming back. Like you didn’t even want me to. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought we were engaged.”

The thing inside of Sammy spreads out, makes his core hurt and his throat constrict. He sits back, puts his hands in his lap. Tries to remember the affection that used to help him deal with Jack’s bouts of sullenness. “We used to be, yeah.” He glances up. “We used to be, but then you left.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Jack’s voice is unsteady. “I didn’t leave, Sammy. I was taken.”

“No.” Sammy keeps his breathing measured. Jack being taken, that’s what everyone always focuses on, but that’s not what he’s talking about. That’s not the thing that makes him angry, that’s been making him angry for three years now. “You packed a bag, Jack. You packed a back, and you snuck out in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t notice. Why would you do it like that if you weren’t leaving?”

“Because you’d’ve stopped me!” Jack’s eyes widen. “If I’d told you I was going to King Falls, you would’ve tried to stop me.”

“For good reason!”

It’s too loud in the half-empty diner. Sammy swallows, lowers his voice. “This is what I mean, Jack. You left. This King Falls thing, whatever it was—it became more important. Than you, than me. Than _us_. When I tried to tell you that I needed you back, you wouldn’t listen. And then—” His voice cracks. “Then you pack a bag and you leave, and maybe you only meant it to be for a week or so, and maybe we could’ve gotten over that. But it wasn’t a week, Jack. It was _three goddamn years_.”

Jack stares at him, lips trembling. “I couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

“You knew enough to know I’d’ve stopped you going.” There’s heat in his eyes that’s threatening to spill, and god, he hates doing shit like this in public. Wipes a hand over his face. “Assuming that everything’s gonna be fine doesn’t mean everything’s always gonna be fine. Assuming you’ll be fine going to a massively haunted town, assuming I’ll forgive you for walking away like that. I know—” He swallows, takes a steadying breath. “I know that this is how things used to work. You’d be gung-ho, I’d be skeptic. But we always—we still ended up doing things together. This, we didn’t do together. This, you did on your own, and it went _badly_.”

Jack’s chewing on his lip. He’s got tears running down his face, but he doesn’t seem to care. Sammy’s not sure he’s even noticed. “So—that’s it?” His throat works. “I—Sammy, I get what you’re saying. I’m _sorry_. I didn’t mean—any of that. I didn’t mean for it to feel like that for you. And I get that this is big, but—you’re not even giving me a chance to fix it.”

Fix it. The notion is almost funny; he has to suppress a laugh. Looks down at his hands and works up the courage to say what he’s got to say. He wasn’t planning on bringing it up, but he supposes Jack has a right to know.

“I tried to kill myself.”

It hangs between them like a warhead seconds away from exploding. Jack’s eyes widen, but Sammy doesn’t give him a chance to speak. “It wasn’t—this. I mean, it was, but—it was a lot of things. A lot of things that have been piling up for a long time.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Jack’s watching him, eyes wide and suddenly dry. “What—” He clears his throat. “What’s a long time?”

Sammy feels shaky after his admission. Shrugs his shoulders. “Five years? Six, maybe. Ever since L.A. God, Jack. I hated L.A.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go.”

“I know.” Sammy nods. “And we went, and it was great for a while, but—I can’t do what we did there.” He wets his lips, finds Jack’s eyes. “Pretending to be someone I’m not—not just on air, but to _everyone_ —I forget who I am. You ended up being the only one who knew who I was, Jack, including myself. I had no fucking clue.”

“Okay.” Jack sounds cautious. “Why—you never said anything. Why?”

This time, Sammy can’t stop a laugh escaping. “Hi, my name’s Sammy. Have we met?”

Jack doesn’t react to the attempt at humor. His hands are clasped in his lap, shoulders pulled up like he’s trying to protect himself. He looks really young all of a sudden, and something in Sammy’s chest feels like it’s breaking. “I just didn’t, Jack. I didn’t say anything here, either, not even once I had people I could’ve said something to.” He shakes his head. “It’s a dumb habit. I’m sorry. I should’ve said something.”

“So—” Jack swallows. “What are you saying? ‘cos where I’m sitting—it kinda sounds like you’re saying that none of it meant anything.”

That hurts, a deep, wrenching ache in his chest that makes his head swim. “No. That’s not—no.” He exhales, closes his eyes for a moment. “It meant everything. And it hurt so much to lose it.” He wets his lips, picks through the mess of emotions inside of him to figure out what to say. “If you hadn’t been taken. If you’d just left, and—if I’d been able to track you down, find you in King Falls and ask you what the hell you were thinking—I like to think that we’d’ve worked it out. I like to think that I could’ve said the things I needed to say, and that you could’ve listened, and that we’d’ve figured it out.” He swallows, gives himself a moment to breathe. “That’s not what happened. I’ve spent the past three years beating myself up over it. That I left it so late, that I didn’t say anything until I _couldn’t_ say anything. But—I can’t change it. I can’t fix it, and I absolutely cannot go back.”

Jack doesn’t say anything right away. Sammy’s feeling nauseous, dizzy, like getting off a roller coaster ride that affected you more than you’d initially thought. He can’t hold Jack’s eyes, so he glances off to the side, focuses on a spot on the far wall.

“Are you okay, though?”

That makes him look around. “What?”

“If you—did that. What you said you did. If you were that unhappy. Is it better now?”

“I—” That’s an unexpected question. It’s a question he hasn’t even asked himself yet, which is weird. It seems so obvious.

He looks down at his hands, tries to figure out an answer. Takes a moment to think back over the last few weeks. Happy is not a word he’d use to describe them. But— “Yeah.” He gives a small nod. “I’m better. Not—good. But getting there.”

Jack wets his lips. “That’s good.” His arms come up, and he leans his elbows on the table, shoulders still hunched up around his ears. It’s less defensive now. “I didn’t—know. What was going on with you, I had no idea. Back in L.A., I mean. I’d noticed that we were talking less, spending less time together. But I thought we’d just gotten busy.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, too.”

Sammy lowers his eyes in acknowledgment, looks down at his hands. Maybe this is really it. A mutual agreement to go separate ways. A release from his promise.

It’s going to take him a while to figure out how he feels about that. For now, he just clears his throat. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I have no idea.” Jack says it on an exhale, accompanied by a headshake. Pulls his shoulders up for good measure; an embodiment of resigned indecision. “I guess I’ll stick with Lily. Her podcast thing seems to be going all right. Maybe I can get in on that.”

“Podcasts are hacky.” He says it quickly, gives it a bit of a smirk so it’s obvious he’s teasing.

Jack looks up, offended at first until he spots Sammy’s expression. “Yeah, right. Mr. Shotgun Sammy, I don’t think you should throw any stones when it comes to hacky.”

“Fair enough.” The nickname’s not comfortable to hear, least of all from Jack, but of course Jack doesn’t mean anything by it. He never does.

“You know, I was hoping maybe you and Lily would’ve made up.”

“Hm?”

Jack shrugs a little. “I thought maybe me being gone would, I dunno, unite you, or something. That’s how it works in movies.”

Sammy snorts. “Don’t think Lily and I are movie material.” He pauses, deliberates for a moment. “I do miss her. Maybe when you see her, you can tell her.”

“Sure.”

The conversation seems to have reached a natural end, things wrapped up with a finality that’s rare to come by. The diner’s filled up more by now; two tables over, there’s a child screaming for ice cream. Beyond bringing the second pot of coffee, the waiter’s left them alone, but they’re going to want their table for the dinner crowd soon.

Before Sammy can figure out an exit, Jack pushes back from the table. “I should get going.” His voice is steady enough, no tremor betraying any emotions. Except then there’s a frown, a softness in his eyes. “Don’t be a complete stranger, okay, Sammy? I’ll—I’ll leave you alone, you’ve made it clear that that’s what you want, but—”

“I’ll be in touch.” It’s an easy promise to make, but it’s not an empty one. At least he hopes it’s not.

Jack gets to his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, Sammy follows suit.

The hug is one between friends. It’s goodbye but not forever; it’s “take care of yourself” and “keep in touch”. It reminds Sammy of a time many years ago on the other side of the country, when the name ‘Jack Wright’ held mostly good connotations for him.

There’s a lump in his throat as he pulls back, hope in his chest. Jack gives him a smile and heads off, makes the diner door jingle as it shuts behind him.

Sammy waits until he can be sure that Jack is gone, leaves a generous tip on the table, and heads out himself.

Ben’s Saturn is sitting where he left it in the back of the parking lot, its greyish color blending with the dusk that surrounds it. He gets in, leans back in the driver’s seat. Closes his eyes and breathes in deep.

It’s almost as good as having Ben present. He can sense him, smell his aftershave, feel his presence in the handful of USB drives scattered across the middle console, in the small hand charm dangling from the rearview mirror. He keeps his eyes closed as he digs out his phone, only opens them to select the correct number from his recent calls.

Ben picks up after the first ring. “Sammy?”

“Hey, Ben.” At the sound of Ben’s voice, something in his chest untangles. He’s momentarily tongue-tied.

“Hey.” The tension in Ben’s voice rises; the silence is probably unnerving him. “How’d it go? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He reconsiders that answer. “I’m a little tired. Looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me, too.” He can hear the smile in Ben’s voice, can picture his face, happy and relieved and so damn appreciative. Nobody’s ever looked at him with as much appreciation as Ben does. “How long till you’re back?”

“Twenty minutes.” He pulls the keys from his pocket, slides them into the ignition. “Leaving now.”

“Great. Good.” Ben sounds excited, like the prospect of seeing Sammy is the best thing that’s happened to him all week. “We should hang up, then. Don’t want Troy to write you a ticket or anything.”

There’s a smile on his face, a burning in his eyes that has very different reasons than the tears he shed earlier. He bites his lip, nods. “Wouldn’t want that. See you in a bit, Ben.”

“See you, Sammy.” And, because Ben is Ben and apparently can’t help himself, he adds, “Love you.”

Sammy’s still smiling when he hangs up, when he turns the key and makes the engine splutter to life. He pulls out of the diner’s parking lot, takes a right, and leaves Big Pine.

The road leads through picturesque green hills lined by snow-capped mountains in the distance. The sun’s just setting, painting a watercolor of reds and yellows into the sky. Eventually, he crests the rise that presents a postcard view of King Falls: a small town spread out in the valley, blue and green houses uniting with the lake glittering in the setting sun to form a picture book idea of what a small mountain town should look like.

In the far distance, at the foot of mountain that forms the other side of the valley, he can spot a small group of wood-paneled houses. He counts; fifth from the left and first from the front. That’s Ben’s house. That’s _his_ house.

A bit further down the road, a group of majestic firs sway softly in the summer breeze and obscure the view. That’s fine, though. Sammy knows where he’s going.

For the first time in a long time, Sammy knows that he’s going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! I hope you enjoyed and got out of this fic what you were hoping for. Comments are great, so if you feel like leaving one, it will be endlessly appreciated. If you'd like to subscribe to my account to get an update when I post a new fic, you can do so in the top right corner of my [profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/profile).
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


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